We caught up with Blue Birds Ladies Football Academy Captain Thabile Nene, the interview was a way of founding out from the players perspective regarding the readiness of the team prior to the 2016 MAP Games.

 1. How is the atmosphere in the team prior to the MAP games 2016 edition?

Thabile:  the atmosphere in the team is good, but I would further say it’s been between two different types of emotions and feelings in the team, because we have two groups in one, we have few players who played this tournament in the past who have failed to achieve certain goals in this tournament and they kind of have an obligation to play better in this tournament, they feel like they still need to do more. Then we have new players who haven’t had prior experience in the tournament, they are eager, they are excited to go out there and feel how it is to play.

 2. On a personal capacity do you feel like you are prepared enough?

Thabile:  personally I feel we are prepared, we have been working hard on our fitness, technique and tactics and I feel like we are ready for the tournament.

3. On a scale from 1-10 how would you rate the readiness of the team? And how did you arrive at that figure?

Thabile:  I would say 10, even though I am being biased and that is because we have been working hard since the beginning of the season planning for such events, I feel like we are ready physically and emotionally.

 4. You have played in this competition before; do you think that your experience will be a factor in the strategy of the team?

Thabile:  I think experience is always good for a small team like ours. It’s good to have experienced players like myself who have played in the tournament and we know what is required to achieve in this tournament and how to guide young players to succeed in the tournament.

 5. In the last edition of the competition, the birds u/17 team reached the same finals playing against city rivals Alexandra Ladies FC losing 2-0,  how do you think that the senior team will fare in this year's edition?

Thabile:   you are speaking history, we were not part of the squad even though we there and people expect us as seniors to do even better than the development team, even our selves we want to surpass what the development team did as we will be in our fortress which is Alexandra stadium which is our home and we want to take it a step further for us to lift the trophy in front of our supporters.