MIGHTY Warriors coach Sithethelelwe ‘Kwinji 15’ Sibanda expects her players to rise to the occasion when they face defending champions and hosts South Africa in a Cosafa Women’s Championship semifinal showdown at Isaac Wolfson Stadium tomorrow.

Sibanda’s charges booked their place in the semifinals after accumulating nine points following convincing victories over Angola (4-1), Mozambique (4-0) and Eswatini (7-0) to finish as Group C winners.

The Mighty Warriors are bidding for their first Cosafa Women’s Championship title since 2011 when they beat Banyana Banyana 1-0 in the final. Since then Zimbabwe have played second fiddle to South Africa who went on to win the 2017 edition and last year’s.

In fact, in the tournament’s six-year history, South Africa has won the title five times with Zimbabwe crowned champions once.

And as they prepare for another titanic battle against Banyana Banyana tomorrow, Sibanda appears relaxed while encouraged by her team’s great strides they have made since arriving here a week ago for the regional tournament.

“We are meeting the hosts and defending champions but I’m sure with the attitude and the improvement shown by the players in all the matches we have played so far, I think it’s going to be a 50-50 situation,” Sibanda said.

“I’m impressed especially when a team shows improvement obviously as a coach you are happy and you appreciate the efforts that the players have put in to get where we are.

“When we started this tournament our worry really was on our physical fitness whether we were going to match our opponents given the limited time we had in preparing. Our match fitness looking at the duration and the last time we participated in an international competition was last year’s Cosafa.H-Metro