Young Gladiators look forward to Cosafa
The Young Gladiators of Namibia are looking forward to the Under-20 Cosafa tournament which will be played around June and July in Port Elizabeth, South Africa.
The U-20 women's national football was eliminated from the Fifa World Cup qualifiers after losing the second leg match 2-0 against Botswana on Friday and are now hoping to make a much better impact in the Cosafa tournament.
The Namibians were also defeated 7-0 at home in the first-leg qualifier: a performance which was aided by unfitness and limited preparation time according to their coach Mamie Kasaona.
The second leg was a much better showing by the Namibian side with the Young Gladiators head coach Uerikondjera Kasaona expressing happiness with the work that the players had put in this past week and the great display of football they showed their opponents, saying preparations bring better results.
“Botswana did not outplay us the way they did back home, our fitness matched theirs.
We could not convert our chances to goals and that is very unfortunate. The results speak for themselves, its clear had we had more time to prepare for the first leg, the results would have been different,” Kasaona added.
Botswana's Obonetse Oratile Rathari opened the score-line on 13 minutes and Keitumese Dithebe doubled it seven minutes later from a free-kick.
With that put aside, the team now hopes to get confirmation to compete in the Cosafa tournament.
“We have the Cosafa tournament lined up as well as the Region 5 Games which will be held in Lesotho in December, all of which still needs to be confirmed,” said Kasaona.
LIMBA MUPETAMI
The U-20 women's national football was eliminated from the Fifa World Cup qualifiers after losing the second leg match 2-0 against Botswana on Friday and are now hoping to make a much better impact in the Cosafa tournament.
The Namibians were also defeated 7-0 at home in the first-leg qualifier: a performance which was aided by unfitness and limited preparation time according to their coach Mamie Kasaona.
The second leg was a much better showing by the Namibian side with the Young Gladiators head coach Uerikondjera Kasaona expressing happiness with the work that the players had put in this past week and the great display of football they showed their opponents, saying preparations bring better results.
“Botswana did not outplay us the way they did back home, our fitness matched theirs.
We could not convert our chances to goals and that is very unfortunate. The results speak for themselves, its clear had we had more time to prepare for the first leg, the results would have been different,” Kasaona added.
Botswana's Obonetse Oratile Rathari opened the score-line on 13 minutes and Keitumese Dithebe doubled it seven minutes later from a free-kick.
With that put aside, the team now hopes to get confirmation to compete in the Cosafa tournament.
“We have the Cosafa tournament lined up as well as the Region 5 Games which will be held in Lesotho in December, all of which still needs to be confirmed,” said Kasaona.
LIMBA MUPETAMI
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Namibian Sun
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