Lesotho aim for maiden knockout appearance
The TotalEnergies CAF Under-17 Africa Cup of Nations 2026 | COSAFA Qualifiers will be staged in Harare, Zimbabwe from September 11-20 with 12 teams hoping to reach the continental finals that are to be held next year.
It will be fascinating to see which sides emerge to not only take the crown, but also advance with the chance of becoming African champions.
The fourth part of our team profiles looks at Lesotho, who have yet to make it out of the pool stages.
LESOTHO
Last five tournament finishes:
2019 – Group Stages
2020 – Did not enter
2021 – Group Stages
2022 – Did not enter
2024 – Group Stages
Lesotho have appeared in most of the COSAFA Under-17 Championships that have been played to date, though they did sit out two of the previous four tournaments as they did not appear in 2020 or 2022.
They played just one match in 2001 after one of their pool opponents, Mozambique, were disqualified for fielding 10 over-age players, and a 3-0 loss to Zambia meant another pool stage exit.
Lesotho returned in 2002 and draws with Eswatini (0-0) and Botswana (2-2) were followed by a 4-0 loss to South Africa that ended their campaign. The 2007 tournament involved a 5-0 loss to South Africa as well, but also a 1-0 win over Mauritius.
They did not return again until 2018, when they again exited at the first stage. They claimed an excellent 0-0 draw with South Africa but followed that up with losses to Zambia (0-1) and Mozambique (1-2).
The team found the going tough in 2019 when they lost all three games, going down to Comoros (0-1), Angola (1-3) and Mozambique (1-4), and in 2021 on home soil they took a single point from their two games and exited at the first stage.
They sat out the next tournament but were back last year when they beat Malawi (3-2), but lost to Angola (1-2) and Mozambique (0-1).
Lesotho have never qualified for the continental or global finals at this age-group level.
