Windhoek
The third round of the Bank Windhoek National Fistball Championship recently held at the SKW fistball fields in the capital, also saw the selectors announce the national team to represent Namibia at the upcoming 15th Men’s World Championship in Argentina later this year.
The chairperson of the Fistball Association of Namibia (FAN), Michael Baas, said the selected team consists mostly of young and inexperienced players, with the exception of Christoph Kubirske and Mark Roesener, who have been exposed at international level before.
The rest of the team members have played for Namibia at Under-18 level. Spikers, Tristan Minz, Gernot Helm, Stephan Zimny, Helmo Minz, Thilo Wilckens, Goetz Friedrich, Marc-Andre Witte and Gian Rudolph all went through the successful youth programme headed by the former Under-18 national team coach Andreas Minz.
Experienced campaigner, Christoph Kubirske, will coach the team in the interim, while FAN finalises talks with former German national players, who will be taking over coaching duties heading to the World Championship.
Baas added that the team will aim to defend the eighth place Namibia achieved at the last World Championship in Austria in 2011. However, taking into consideration the huge steps other nations have taken in developing fistball, a more conservative goal of finishing tenth from the participating 17 teams seems more realistic.