The Brave Warriors will have to use their 1-0 victory against Kenya as a stepping stone to greater heights when they host Liberia with a one-goal deficit on Saturday.
These were the sentiments of attacking midfielder Heinrich Isaacks ahead of the crucial 2013 CAF Afcon preliminary round return leg at the Windhoek Independence Stadium.
Liberia won the first round match 1-0 in Monrovia on February 28 with the result that Namibia will have to score at least two goals on Saturday to go through to the next round.
Over the past two weeks, Namibia lost 1-0 to Nigeria and beat Kenya 1-0 and Isaacks believes that Namibia will have to step up their performance if they hope to progress to the next round.
“We played well for the past two weeks and now we have to step up our game even further to ensure we progress to the next round. It’s not about three points against Liberia but two clear goals and we have to score them to advance. Our nation deserves it for the support they have showed in us and as a team we are getting there,” said the Civics captain.
Isaacks said the plan was simple against Kenya.
“We wanted an early goal. We tried to play with the wings and hit balls into the box for Henrico Botes to head at goal but their defence stood tall and strong and so we had to change and adapt to keeping the ball more and play to our strength. We have ball players in the team and we changed to keeping the ball down and that worked for us in the second half.”
Isaacks reckons they have to build on that win but it won’t be so easy.
“We have to do it over and over again, but we are also aware of how cruel football can be. We have to move on and plan for what is next for us. We are playing Liberia on Saturday in the 2013 Afcon qualifiers and we need to turn our attention to that as soon as possible and obviously this win will give us confidence but we will remain focused on the job at hand.”
Lazarus Kaimbi is expected to resume training today after an ankle injury he sustained in the match against Kenya, but it remains doubtful whether Rudolph Bester will recover in time for Saturday’s match, according to NFA technical director Klaus Stark.
“It will make no sense for the team to play Bester because his injury is a serious one and we have options in other players as well. If he is not 100 per cent fit to play he won’t play. A muscle injury is very serious and we need to take precautions and use him only when really necessary,” Stark said.