Namibia’s U/20 national football side, the Young Warriors, were Monday drawn in Group B of the U/20 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon), slated for Mauritania between 14 February and 4 March 2021. The Young Warriors are grouped with Tunisia, Burkina Faso and Central African Republic.
The U/20 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) draw was conducted on Monday in Yaoundé, Cameroon on the sidelines of the ongoing African Nations Championship (Chan), where the senior Warriors are also participating.
This year’s U/20 Afcon will for the first time see 12 countries partaking in the continental youth football competition, moving up from the previous number of only eight participants. It will also be the first time for Namibia to make an appearance at the tournament, which is held every two years and sees the top-four finishers qualifying for the Fifa U/20 World Cup.
Namibia booked her place at this year’s U/20 Afcon after reaching the finals of the last year’s Council of Southern Africa Football Associations (Cosafa) U/20 Cup held in South Africa.
Reacting to the draw, Young Warriors head gaffer James Britz said competition will be tough as their Group B opponents will equally come well prepared and eager to do well.
“We have seen few games of Burkina Faso and Tunisia but I can’t say much about Central African Republic as I haven’t seen much of them. I however believe they are a good team that’s why they made it to the finals. It’s a tough group I have to say, Tunisia is a good team and they play traditional football and they are fast too. But we did not qualify just to add numbers at the competition, we worked very hard to reach the tournament and we will continue working hard. We will go out there and compete, I know it won’t be easy but we want to go there and get the needed results. We ready to go and compete with Africa’s biggest teams,” said a confident Britz.
-mkambukwe@nepc.com.na