Gladiators aim at Cosafa breakthrough
Football
The Cosafa Women’s football championship will be staged in Gqeberha in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province from 22 October to 02 November.It will feature a record 14 teams, making it the largest women’s international competition on the African continent.
Coach Woody Jacobs’ Brave Gladiators will compete in Pool A against hosts South Africa, Eswatini and Seychelles.
Namibia were semifinalists in the Cosafa Women’s Championship in 2022, but narrowly lost 1-0 to hosts South Africa, before a 2-1 defeat to Tanzania in the third-place play-off.
It was still their best showing for many a year as they finished runner-up in their pool behind Zambia with two wins against Eswatini (5-1) and Lesotho (2-0).
Namibia has eight previous appearances at the Cosafa Women’s Championships when they turned out in 2006, 2008, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022 and 2023.
In their first showing in 2006 they claimed an excellent 2-2 draw with Zambia and then thumped Eswatini 6-0 in the pool stages, enough to see them into the semifinals as runners-up in their group.
They gained revenge over Zambia with a 5-4 penalty shoot-out victory after a 1-1 draw, but lost in the final to South Africa when they went down 3-1. They reached the semifinals again two years later, but this time were ousted at that stage by South Africa, ironically by the same scoreline.
They had less success in 2017, beating Botswana 4-0 in their opener, but then losing 2-1 to Lesotho and once again suffering a 3-1 loss to South Africa to finish bottom of their pool.
The following year they beat Eswatini 4-1, but a defeat to Zimbabwe (0-1) and a draw with East African guest nation Uganda (0-1) meant they did not progress to the knockout stages.
They were back again in 2019, but won only one of their three games, an 8-0 hammering of Mauritius. Before that they lost to Botswana (0-1) and Zambia (2-3).
After missing 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, they took four points in 2021, drawing with a strong Uganda team 0-0 in their opener, before a 3-0 loss to Zambia and a 1-0 win over Eswatini.
Their semifinal showing in 2022 was followed by a group stage exit in 2023 as they took four points from a win over Lesotho (2-0), draw with Botswana (1-1) and loss to Zimbabwe (0-2).
NAMIBIA WOMEN at COSAFA
Best finish: Second (2006)
Current FIFA ranking: 125th.
Current CAF ranking: 19th.
Last five tournaments:
2019 – Group Stage
2020 – Did not enter
2021 – Group Stage
2022 – Fourth
2023 – Group Stage
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