End of the road for the Brave Warriors 

The Brave Warriors’ 3-1 defeat to Zimbabwe on Monday officially put an end to their hopes of reaching the 2025 Afcon finals in Morocco.

Going into the match their chances were already hanging by a thread after three successive defeats in the qualifiers, but there were to be no miracle comebacks as Zimbabwe ran out comfortable winners. 

Like their first encounter last Thursday that Zimbabwe won 1-0, Namibia once again had more possession, comfortably shading it by 58 percent to 42, but they failed to make much of it, and Zimbabwe, in fact, created more chances, with six shots on target compared to only two by Namibia. 

Furthermore, although Namibia provided more crosses – 20 to 6 – a telling statistic was the fact that Namibia only had a 20 percent crossing accuracy compared to Zimbabwe’s 66 percent. 

Namibia hardly ever looked threatening, with two off-target headers by Peter Shalulile and Bethuel Muzeu the best that they could conjure up.

Zimbabwe also had a bit of luck as their opening goal by Walter Musona caught Edward Maova well off his line with a lobbed volley that dipped under the net, while Kennedy Amutenya was rather harshly penalised for a handball when he was trying to take evasive action. 

Musona converted the resultant spot kick to put Zimbabwe 2-0 ahead, and Prince Dube sealed their win when he slammed home an excellent cross by Jordan Zemura, who was a constant thorn in Namibia’s defence with his incisive attacks. 

Substitute Godwin Eiseb scored a late consolation goal for Namibia, pouncing onto a defensive error, but it was too little too late with the final whistle going shortly after. 

With only two matches remaining in the qualifiers, Namibia are now definitely out of contention, still rooted at the bottom of the log on zero points, while Zimbabwe, have given their chances a major boost. 

Earlier on Monday, Cameroon booked their place at the finals with a 1-0 victory against Kenya, which put them on top of the log on 10 points and with only two matches remaining, they are assured of a top-two spot. 

Zimbabwe are second on eight points, and with a four-point lead over third-placed Kenya, they are now in the driving seat to clinch the second Afcon spot.

For Namibia, though, it was a sobering defeat – their fifth in succession – and their amazing exploits at Afcon 2023 in the Ivory Coast are now distant memories. 

Then they produced the shock of the tournament by beating highly-rated Tunisia 1-0, and reaching the knockout stages for the first time, but this time they will have to watch from afar as a new group of warriors battle it out for continental glory. 

Disappointed and irate Namibian fans have taken to social media to vent their frustration, with some calling for coach Collin Benjamin’s head, and his recent run of defeats and cold statistics have certainly increased the pressure. 

With 10 victories in 35 matches as Brave Warriors coach, Benjamin has a success rate of only 28,5 percent, which is inferior to his immediate predecessors, Bobby Samaria and Ricardo Mannetti.

Mannetti, who reigned for six years from 2013 to 2019, won 27 out of 67 matches for a success rate of 40,2 percent, while he, of course, also made history by winning the Cosafa Cup for the first time in 2015. 

Samaria, who was in charge from 2019 to 2022 won nine matches out of 26 for a success rate of 34,6 percent.

Other external factors, however, have not helped Benjamin, most notably not being able to play at home due to inadequate stadiums, while another, recurring factor, is the lack of organised football in the country. The new league was supposed to have started on 21 September, but now, nearly a month later, the public is still in the dark about the kick-off date. 

With the African Nations Championship (Chan) qualifiers for home-based players now less than two weeks away, Namibia will once again start on the back foot when they take on Lesotho on 26 October.