The Brave Warriors resume their 2026 Fifa World Cup qualifying campaign suddenly joint top of their group after gaining an unexpected bonus from the world governing body.
Fifa last weekend penalised Equatorial Guinea for fielding an ineligible player, Emilio Nsue, in their matches against Namibia and Liberia last November, and ruled that the games be forfeited. Equatorial Guinea beat both Namibia and Liberia 1-0 last November, but those results have now been scrapped with both of their opponents being awarded three points and three goals.
That has now suddenly put Namibia at the top of Group H along with Tunisia on six points from two matches, and with another three points guaranteed due to the Equatorial Guinea return leg also being forfeited, they are now in a strong position in the race for the top spot, which will gain automatic qualification to the 2026 World Cup.
Coach Collin Benjamin yesterday, however, said that he is not looking too far ahead.
“I’m happy as a coach and for our country, it’s three points for the win and six points in the bag, but we are of course competitors and would have liked to win on the field of play,” he said.
“I don’t think we should talk about the world cup, it’s very important to just concentrate on the upcoming match and we will take it game by game. Its difficult enough already, having to play our matches away from home, but we must make it as difficult as possible for our opponents,” he added.
Benjamin has been preparing with the local-based squad at the NFA Technical Centre for the past two weeks, before they leave for Johannesburg tomorrow for two more world cup qualifying matches against Liberia (on 5 June) and Tunisia (9 June) at the Orlando Stadium next week, as well as a friendly against Lesotho tomorrow evening.
Benjamin said that some senior players will be unavailable for the Lesotho match, but that he was looking forward to seeing some of the new uncapped players in the squad in action.
“Ryan (Nyambe) is out injured, so he won’t be available and Peter Shalulile and Deon Hotto are playing in the Nedbank Cup final on Saturday so they are also not available. But the whole idea with the squad for Lesotho is to bring in some new players, to give them experience,” he said.
“We’ve got a totally new squad that has been training in Windhoek for two weeks now so some of them will play against Lesotho – it will be good to have strong opponents and good competition to test them,” he added.
Experienced defender Ananias Gebhardt, who won 63 caps for Namibia, recently announced his international retirement, while Petrus Shitembi, another Brave Warriors stalwart and Namibia’s second most capped player with 83 caps, is also expected to have come to the end of his international career. Another stalwart, defender Denzil Haoseb who has a record 87 caps for Namibia, has also not been selected.
“Ananias Gebhardt has officially retired – he put his ankles, his knees and his body on the block for his country. But he will focus on his club Baroka now who will be involved in promotion matches to the Dstv Premiership,” Benjamin said.
“Shitembi has not officially retired, but he served his country very well and we are now entering a transitional phase where we have to introduce these upcoming youngsters, rather now than later,” he added.
Benjamin said the final squad for the upcoming matches will be announced before the team’s departure tomorrow morning.
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