THE NATIONAL women football team will start residential training on January 31 ahead of their CAF Africa Women’s Championship qualifier match against Kenya.

This was confirmed by the newly appointed team head coach and former national team central defender, Marie-Grace Nyinawumuntu. Nyinawumuntu will be assisted by Innocent Seniga, while Claude Maniraguha is the goalkeepers’ coach.

A provisional squad of 36 players will be called up for pre-selection from which the 24-player squad will be picked. According to the coach, pre-selection will take four days from January 23 to 27.

She also said that the 36-player list was made from a conference that brought together all Rwandan women football teams’ coaches and national women team coaching staff with football association (Ferwafa) committee last Tuesday at Ferwafa headquarters.

Rwanda national women football team is set to host Kenyan counterparts on the weekend of February 13-15 and two weeks later they will fly to Kenya for the qualifier’s second-leg match of the 2014 CAN Africa women’s championship.

The winner after the two legs will proceed to the next round to play the winner of the Nigeria/Sierra Leone fixture in preparation for the finals which will be held in Namibia on October 15-25.