Hilma Nalupe
The Brave Warriors suffered a heavy 4-0 defeat when they took on Comoros in their second friendly match this Monday afternoon.
The team, made up of locally based players and led by coach John Sikerete, played two international friendly matches on 14 and 17 November in Moroni, Comoros at the Malouzini Omnisports stadium.
During Monday’s match, Comoros player, Ben Djaloud Youssouf, scored his first goal in the first 12 minutes, followed by M’Changama Youssouf in the 25th minute, and in the second half, Iyad Mohamed and Mohamed El Fardou scored in the 60th and 80th minutes, leading to Comoros’ undisputed win.
According to Namibia’s head coach, the main aim of the international friendly matches was to prepare and see which of the young players can play at international level.
“Our aim was to see how far we can go with the local players without the international players there,” said Sikerete.
The Namibian team undeniably played better in the first friendly match than they did in the second.
The Comoros team studied and explored the Brave Warriors weaknesses and capitalised on that to ensure their 4-0 win.
“These are young boys, they could not contain the tactical orientation from the other team, which led to the weakness in our line of defence,” said he said.
Most of Namibia’s local based players have only played five games during the current league season before travelling to Comoros, which may attribute to their poor performance during these friendly matches.
“Some of the teams that the players are coming from are ranked higher than other, but if we play more games, the players will adapt to the conditioning of the games and be able to cope with any game’s intensity,” said Sikerete.
-hnalupe@nepc.com.na