Mamelodi Sundowns’ Namibian striker Peter Shalulile has joined the Brave Warriors’ injury list, along with Ronald Ketjijere from African Stars and Devin Somseb from Tigers, ahead of their 2026 World Cup qualifiers next week.
The Brave Warriors are scheduled to play Equatorial Guinea and Sao Tome and Principe in their 2026 International Federation of Association Football (Fifa) World Cup qualifiers on 15 and 21 November 2023, respectively.
In an interview with Nampa on Monday, Brave Warriors head coach Collin Benjamin said the national team will be missing some key players for the upcoming two matches.
“We had a group of 20 local players in camp – but unfortunately, Somseb and Edmund Kambanda have joined the injury list, along with Ketjijere, who did not fully recover from his previous injury, and our international striker Shalulile, who is out with an injury,” he said.
Despite the growing injury list, Benjamin said the training camp for local players went well, with a focus on defensive and offensive play.
“Quinton Kuruseb, Erastus Kalulu and Lawrence Doeseb are some of the young players who gave a good account of themselves, but I was more impressed with Charles Hambira, who has not been in the set-up since picking up an injury against Cameroon,” he added.
Benjamin stated that the squad would be reduced on Monday ahead of their travels to South Africa on Thursday, where they will have a three-day training before departing for Equatorial Guinea.
“Our international-based players will be playing for their clubs over the weekend, but we plan to travel to Malabo on Sunday evening, as our game is scheduled for Wednesday. My only hope is to not have many players added to the already-existing injury list,” he said.
The coach also said that the Brave Warriors technical team would use these World Cup qualifiers to assess players for the upcoming African Nations Cup, which is scheduled for January 2024 in Ivory Coast.
“These qualifiers are important to us, as we are going to use them to have an idea of what squad to have for the 2023 Afcon, despite these being World Cup qualifiers. We are going to see what value these players will add to the squad while competing in the World Cup qualifiers,” he said, adding that their target would also be to collect four points from these two games.
– Nampa