Senior national football team coach, Collin Benjamin, has said Namibia’s nomination as National Team of the Year in the Confederation of African Football (CAF) Awards is something to be proud of and proof that the team has had a special year.
CAF on Wednesday announced the nominees for the men’s categories of the
2023 CAF Awards scheduled for 11
December 2023, in Marrakech, Morocco.
Teams nominated in the National Team of the Year category include Cape Verde, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Mauritania, Mozambique, Namibia, and Tanzania. The 2022 International Federation of Association Football quarterfinalists, Morocco and Senegal, who won the 2021 African Nations Cup, also formed part of the list.
Meanwhile, Namibian and South African Premier Soccer League goal poacher Peter Shalulile also received a nomination in the Interclub Player of the Year category.
In an interview with Nampa on Wednesday, Benjamin said it feels special to be nominated alongside some of the biggest nations on the continent.
“It feels good to be part of the list; at least somebody looked out there and said something special is happening in Namibia. We have not had a league for four years, yet we still managed to qualify for the continent’s biggest event,” he said.
Benjamin noted that in the past, it took Namibia 10 years to qualify for Afcon, but this time around, despite having an inactive league, they did it in four years.
He added that being in the same group as Senegal, who are the current African champions, and Morocco, who performed well at the 2022 Fifa World Cup, showed Namibia has had a special year, and it’s something to be proud of as a nation.
A panel of CAF technical experts, legendary African football players, and chosen media representatives from various nations compiled a preliminary list for the various categories of the CAF Awards.
The nominees’ performances under consideration for the awards are from November 2022 to September 2023.
A list of 30 players were nominated for
the top prize of CAF African Player of the
Year, while 20 players were named CAF Interclub Player of the Year.
The Coach of the Year, CAF National Team of the Year, and Club of the Year categories have 10 nominees each, as does the CAF Young Player of the Year category for players under 21 years.
CAF also introduced the CAF African Goalkeeper of the Year Category (Men and Women) for the first time. The awards will, in addition, reward and celebrate exceptional players, officials, and administrators during
the period under review.
The CAF Technical Committee, media experts, head coaches, and captains of member associations and clubs taking part in the group stages of the interclub competitions will make the final decisions regarding the winners of each category.
The nominees for the women’s categories will be announced in due course.
– Nampa