Willy ‘Awilo’ Stephanus, the Namibia Premier Football League’s leading goalscorer for the past two seasons, says he is relishing his time at champions African Stars.
Stephanus (32) netted 16 goals this term to claim the golden boot, as Stars retained the league crown. The forward scored 20 goals in the 2022/2023 football season that signaled the revival and activation of the country’s elite league.
The seasoned footballer went on to successfully defend his golden boot in the just concluded 2023/2024 football season.
Speaking to Desert Radio recently, Stephanus said he has no regrets over penning a contract with African Stars over rejoining former club Black Africa when he returned from abroad.
“As a player, one has to be ambitious and when I returned from Zambia after playing for the Lusaka Dynamos, I had talks with both African Stars FC and my former club Black Africa FC,” the well travelled player said.
“Now Black Africa FC wanted to assemble good players at the time, but African Stars FC on the other hand looked at signing quality players because their dream was and and still is conquering Africa by winning the league and competing in the Confederation of African Football (CAF) Champions League qualifiers.
“The CAF Champions League is the highest club competition on the continent, and which player does not want to be part of that dream?”
Reflecting on the past two seasons, Stephanus said he found the 2022/2023 football season less challenging than the current one because there was no active football in Namibia for nearly three years.
As the competition picked up, the scoring chances became fewer.
“That made it easy for me at the time because I just came from playing active football in Lusaka, Zambia,” said Stephanus of hitting a purple patch in the autumn of his career.
“For most players, they had to get back into the game and it was never easy, so scoring goals in the 2022/2023 football season was a marvel.
“However, it was not easy during the 2023/2024 football season because now players had game time as I only managed to score 16 goals and retained the golden boot,” said Stephanus, who hopes to lead Stars to a league and PstBet NFA Cup double.
Stars face Young Brazilians FC in the season-concluding cup final at Windhoek’s Independence Stadium on 27 July.
Before that, they will form part of a pre-season tournament at Gaborone from 18 to 25 July, taking on Gaborone United, Masitaoka and BDF XI from Botswana, as well South African Premiership side Supersport United.
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