Veselin Jelusic: Lesotho appoint Serbian as coach
- Published
Veselin Jelusic was unveiled on Tuesday in a ceremony alongside Lesotho FA general secretary Mokhosi Mohapi in Maseru
Lesotho have appointed former Angola and Botswana boss Veselin Jelusic as their new coach.
The Serbian has also previously taken charge of clubs in South Africa and Zambia.
He takes up the Lesotho post with one month to prepare for their Africa Cup of Nations preliminary round qualifier against the Seychelles.
The two sides will play a two-legged knockout tie to determine a place in the group phase of the qualifiers for the 2023 finals.
The group qualifiers are scheduled to begin in June, with the finals in the Ivory Coast set for mid-2023.
Lesotho have already began preparations for their play-off by taking their side to Pretoria's High Performance Training Centre.
Virtually a full squad will be available to Jelusic to work with as Lesotho have only a handful of foreign-based players in their team.
The Lesotho Football Association (LeFA) also announced that Maseru's Sesoto Stadium has been declared unfit to host the second leg of their tie against the Seychelles.
Instead LeFA has arranged to play the match at Dobsonville Stadium in Soweto, in neighbouring South Africa.
Jelusic was Angola coach for seven matches in 1998-99 but was fired after a shock 2-0 home loss to Mauritius in the 2000 Nations Cup qualifiers.
He was Botswana coach for four years from 2002 to 2006 and then took up a role of technical director and won acclaim for his development of the junior teams in Botswana.
Africa Cup of Nations 2023 preliminary play-off fixtures
Eritrea v Botswana
Sao Tome and Principe v Mauritius
Djibouti v South Sudan
Seychelles v Lesotho
Somalia v Eswatini
Chad v The Gambia
Ties to be played on 21 and 29 March.