The Namibian Brave Warriors have been approached to play a friendly against India on September 18.
According to www.kickoffindia.com, “The Indian team is currently training in Portugal in preparation for the Asian Cup in Doha, Qatar in January next year. After a friendly with Thailand in Bangkok on Sept. 4, it is to play against North Korea on Sept. 14, Namibia on Sept. 18, and Turkmenistan on Sept. 22 and 25.”
The Namibia Football Association (NFA) Secretary General, Barry Rukoro, confirmed receiving an invite to play the Asian country.
“We have received an invitation yesterday from the Indian Football Association to play them in September,” Rukoro said.
The coach of the Brave Warriors, Tom Saintfiet, was excited about the possibility of playing India because it will serve as a preparation for the Cosafa tournament in November.
“The possibility to play India would be interesting. It will not be on a FIFA date so we would have to use our home based team for the game.”
“That would also be a good preparation match for the Cosafa tournament which is due to be played in November in Angola,” Saintfiet said.
The Cosafa Senior Challenge Cup will be held from 13-27 November in Lubango and Benguela Provinces of Angola.
Namibia was supposed to play Mauritania in October for the qualifiers of the AFCON 2012 in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea. Mauritania however pulled out of the qualifiers and this means that the Brave Warriors will not have a match from after they play Gambia on September 4 until next year March when they will face Burkina Faso.
“This match against India will not be a direct alternative for the match we were supposed to play against Mauritania because we would have used our professionals for that one. We are only allowed to use our home based players for this match.”
“India has a fully professional league with a lot of players from all over the world playing there. This will be a good opportunity for the home based guys to show off what they can do and maybe get a contract,” Saintfiet said.
India is currently ranked 138 on the FIFA rankings and will be using the match as part of their preparation for the Asian Cup due to be held in Doha, Qatar in January next year.
“The fact that they qualified to play in the Asian Cup means that they are quite a strong side and therefore will be a difficult team to beat,” Saintfiet concluded.