Rabale eyes Champions League success

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Boitumelo Rabele of Lesotho during the 2017 COSAFA Women's Championship football match between Lesotho and Botswana at Luveve Stadium, Bulawayo on 16 September 2017 ©Samuel Shivambu/BackpagePix

STAFF REPORTER

MASERU – Mehalalitoe captain, Boitumelo ‘Queen’ Rabale will be looking to add more silverware to her successful first year at South Africa’s Mamelodi Sundows FC when they head to Egypt for the CAF Women’s Champions League.

The-24-year-old in her debut season with the Tshwane outfit has already tasted success winning the inaugural TotalEnergies CAF Women’s Champions League COSAFA qualifiers in September. Sundowns are also on the verge of successfully defending their Hollywood bets Super League in South Africa, where they enjoy an 18-point advantage over second placed, TUT FC.

“It’s been a very good and interesting first year at Sundowns. We are one game away from clinching the league title and will also be off to Egypt to play in the CAF Women’s Champions League,” Rabale said. “I want to help the team add the CAF Women’s Champions League title into their trophy cabinet. It will mean so much not only for me, but the Sundowns family and Basotho at large.”

The Lesotho star registered two goals as Sundowns clinched the lone COSAFA ticket after a dominant display, winning all their six matches and scoring 22 goals.

Rabale admitted that it will be a different ball game at the eight-club tournament in Egypt, where they have been drawn in Group B alongside Kenya’s Vihiga Queens, Morocco’s AFFAR and River Angels of Nigeria.

“We know what’s at stake and we have prepared very well as a team to take on the best in the continent. We have played a lot of games, which have helped our preparations and there are no injuries in our squad. We are ready,” she said.

The first edition of the CAF Women’s Champions League will be staged in Cairo, Egypt from November 5-9. Born on August 5, 1996 in Maseru, Rabale is a former striker for Canadian college team, CBU Capers.

In 2015, she won the inaugural Lesotho Women’s Super League with her former team, Likhosatsana FC. She later joined Bloemfontein Celtic and captained the South African side between 2016 and 2017 before leading the club to win the league.

In April 2017, she won Lesotho’s Sport Star of the Year Award. The same year she left Bloemfontein Celtic and was awarded a Kick4Life Student-Athlete Scholarship before she moved to the Lewis and Clark Community College in Godfrey, Illinois, United States of America (USA).

In January 2020, she was named the National Junior College Women’s Player of the Year following her 2019 season with the LCCC Trailblazers, in which she was the league’s top goalscorer with 57 goals and placed third with her team in the NJCAA Division National Tournament. Rabale capped for Lesotho at senior level during the 2018 Africa Women Cup of Nations qualification.

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