Windhoek
Namibia’s Cosafa Under-17 Championships campaign, which initially kicked off on a high via an impressive 3-1 victory over hosts Mauritius on Saturday, yesterday suffered a blow following a 4-0 defeat to South Africa.
In their Group-A clash of the championships which are underway in Mauritius, South Africa proved too strong for the Namibian side as four unanswered goals from Luke le Roux, James Monyane, Linamandla Mchilizeli and Siphamandla Ntuli were enough to boost South Africa’s chances of reaching the semi-finals as they need just a point against hosts Mauritius tomorrow.
With the defeat, the boys from the Land of the Brave are now faced with a non-negotiable assignment of fighting their way past Seychelles when they meet tomorrow, as a possible win could equally boost Namibia’s chances of making it to the competition’s semi-finals.
On Saturday, both Namibian and South Africa won their opening matches, with Namibia beating hosts Mauritius 3-0 and South Africa beating Seychelles 1-0.
Also in yesterday’s action, hosts Mauritius dusted themselves off with a hard-fought 1-0 victory over Seychelles to keep their hopes alive. Although they are now officially dumped out of the competition, Seychelles could still pose a serious threat to Namibia as they have nothing to lose going into tomorrow’s final Group-A clash and would thus want to blemish Namibia’s probabilities of reaching the semifinals.