SHOOTING FROM THE HIP
Carlos Kambaekwa
Firstly, let me take this opportunity to doff my korrie for the Patron of the NFA Dr Hage Geingob for twisting the arm of giant Mobile Telecommunications Company (MTC) to financially assist the Brave Warriors ahead of their West African safari next month.
The usually hard-to-please author of this column could not help but shed a tear or two at the historic handing over ceremony in Windhoek earlier this week, where MTC presented a massive cheque of N$2,5 million for the Warriors’ participation in Ghana.
Following a turbulent week in the aftermath of Benson Bamfuchile’s widely-reported resignation which was vehemently denied by his bosses who rubbished the report and placed the implicated journalist’s editorial integrity at stake – there seems to be light at the end of the tunnel for the troubled Association.
The Young Warriors are causing havoc in the Annual COSAFA Under-20 tournament under way in South Africa after claiming the scalps of Zambia to reach the knockout stage of the youth cup competition for the first time since its inception years ago.
The Young Warriors will play Zimbabwe in the semi-final today and judging by their performance so far, the cup could find a new home at Soccer House.
The National Senior Women’s team has also done the country proud by comprehensively seeing off Botswana in their own backyard in the first leg of the of the African Women’s Cup preliminaries.
Whilst things are looking rosy on the playing field, there appears to be more lip service paid on the organizational side than body service.
Namibia is to host the inaugural COSAFA Under-17 tournament this weekend, but the marketing aspect for this regional competition leaves a lot to be desired, to say the least.
The change rooms at the Khomasdal Stadium, one of the venues to host matches in the eight-day tournament, are certainly not conducive for international guests even if they are still in their teens.
Grounding Not Only for the Mentally Insane
There is a rule that says if someone is mad they have to be grounded. This notion initially comes from wartime pilots who desperately wanted to be grounded so that they wouldn’t have to fly anymore dangerous combat missions.
These wartime soldiers would apply every bit of everything in the book of tricks to declare themselves mad in order to be grounded, but if someone asks to be grounded in normal life these days, that is taken as conclusive evidence of their sanity; anyone who wants to get out of combat duty can’t be a mental case.
On the contrary, anyone who flies must be surely crazy. This is Catch-22, that’s the bottom line!
From a logical point of view, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with the Namibian Football Association appointing a caretaker coach or a stop-gap technical adviser for that matter, but alas this is surely not a Catch-22 situation since there is another way out.
Despite denials by the powers at Soccer House that Benson Bamfuchile would no longer be at the helm of the Brave Warriors’ participation in Ghana next year, the country’s football authorities have in the meantime tiptoed around for a replacement.
The NFA has roped in an unknown Dutch coach to render technical advice to Bamfuchile’s two assistants Brian Isaacs and Ronnie Kanalelo, when Namibia starts her assault in the 26th edition of the three-week continental showpiece.
Yours truly is really concerned about the goings-on at Soccer House for the simple reason that one would have expected the NFA’s technical adviser Seth Boois to deal with coaching matters and not the other way round.
Given the time frame, was it an appropriate decision to bring in a new man at this stage while the two assistants are better equipped to carry the baton further?
The same principle applies to footballers called up for national duty, and the Rudolph Bester debacle is a case in point.
It should be remembered that players are called up by coaches with the association only facilitating the process and yours truly fails to see where Eleven Arrows faulted when they humbly approached the coach with a request for the boy to be released. After all, the player is contracted to them.
Surely, the NFA does not dictate to the coach which players must be selected for national duty or who should be left out of selection, so why should they suddenly feel the urge to have a stake in team selection.
If they have already incurred expenses on the player in question – yours truly is certain Arrows would have met them halfway to recover the apparent costs and allow the boy to undergo trials abroad.