The Brave Warriors start their campaign for a place at the 2012 African Cup of Nations finals this month with a tough away match against Gambia on September 4.
Their preparations have not been ideal with a planned friendly match against Israel falling through due to visa problems, while most of Namibia’s players are not match fit due to the inactivity of the Namibia Premier League. Furthermore, five of Namibia’s foreign based professionals are currently clubless after their contracts were not renewed.
Gambia, on the other hand, has shown a lot of improvement over the past year and according to the latest FIFA rankings, was ranked 12 places ahead of Namibia. Added to that, they have more than 20 foreign based professionals to call on, with many playing in Scandinavian leagues which are currently in full swing.
This is the moment that Tom Saintfiet has been working towards since he became Brave Warriors coach in July 2008 and it will be crucial that he starts off with a positive result. The news that Mauritania withdrew from Group F, leaving just Namibia, Gambia and Burkina Faso to fight it out for the top spot will make the group even more difficult. Now there will be no easy matches, while the margin for error will be so much smaller.
The pressure is on, but despite having the odds stacked against them, Saintfiet and the Brave Warriors have the potential to start off with a bang. I will accompany the team on the trip so make sure that you are logged on to our website for daily updates about the team’s progress.
While the Brave Warriors face a tough campaign on the road, the president of the Namibia Football Association John Muinjo will face a tough battle at home after successful businessman Ranga Haikali launched his campaign for the NFA presidency in August.
Haikali has joined forces with another successful businessman and the current chairman of the Namibia Premier League, JJ Doeseb, who will contest the vice presidency, and who has played a big role in transforming the NPL into a professional setup.
Doeseb pulled off a major coup when he brought South African glamour club Kaizer Chiefs to Namibia for a pre-season friendly against Eleven Arrows at the end of July. Besides this, he also brought in two new sponsors for the international friendly, and the two entrepreneurs have promised that many more sponsors will come on board if they win the elections.
The regions however will have the voting power, making up 13 of the 16 votes, so it will be interesting to see if they remain with the status quo or if they will vote for change. Whatever the outcome, expect another tough battle that could go down to the wire.
In other sporting codes, Namibia competed in several international events in August but failed to make an impact. Namibia’s top athletes made no impact at all at the African Athletics Championships, our Inline Hockey players were eliminated by South Africa in their World Cup qualifier, and Zimbabwe dominated the Momentum International Hockey Challenge against Namibia.
Namibia’s best performance at an international competition in fact, came from a 17-year-old - the young wrestler Jason Afrikaner - who won a bronze medal at the Youth Olympic Games in Singapore.
On the local scene, the 44-year-old Luketz Swartbooi and Helalia Johannes dominated the Old Mutual Victory Races, while Windhoek High School won the Metropolitan Boards Schools Rugby Trophy for the fourth year in a row. Their dominance, however, could soon be challenged by a new rising power in Windhoek Gymnasium who swept all before them to win the Under 14A and Under 15A trophies.
There’s lots more to read in the September issue of Namibia Sport and remember to enter the MTC Namibia Premier League competition to stand a chance to win a top of the range cell phone.
Till next time, enjoy the read.
Helge Schutz
Namibia Sport once again showed steady growth on its website during August.
By the 24th of August we had already surpassed one million Total Hits per month and were well on track to beat our July record of 1 459 881 Total Hits.
Our unique visitors for August had reached 36 610 at an average of 1 525 per day, which was also on track to beat July’s record of 47 012 unique visitors or 1 516 per day.
We invite advertisers to come on board and make use of our website to reach our growing community of sport fans across the world. Please contact me at advertising@namibiasport.com.na to discuss our special website rates as well as our magazine advertising rates.
Lisa Isaacks