With increased exposure, the Brave Gladiators have the potential to become a force on the continent.
This is according to the team’s head coach, Nicholas ‘Woody’ Jacobs.
He believes the team is hovering just below the elite level threshold, and requires regular international matches to challenge Africa’s leading football nations for honours.
Jacobs was speaking after Namibia finished runners-up to host South Africa in Group A at the ongoing Cosafa Women’s Championships in Gqeberha.
His charges cruised to a 2-0 win over Eswatini in their final pool assignment on Monday, courtesy of a brace from skipper Zenatha Coleman, who claimed the player of the match prize for the second game running.
“We said we’re going to give it our all in this game and we’re going to go out with a win. Because I believe the girls have the quality to put any opposition to bed. I mean we possess the quality to win any game and it was no different the other day [on Friday against Seychelles],” Jacobs said in his post match analysis.
“You could see that, I think, with both proceedings. I think we controlled many parts of the game, with a few glitches maybe at times. Especially, at the end of the first half.”
Ideally, Jacobs would have liked to still be in contention for honours as it guarantees his side two more matches. But for the 1-0 defeat to South Africa’s Banyana Banyana in their opener last week, the Gladiators would have reached consecutive semi-finals in the competition.
“All in all, I’m happy with the performance. I’m happy with the chemistry, the togetherness of the girls and the fact that we can rely on the experience of so many. We’re done for the year now, having played six matches thus far,” Jacobs noted.
“We played Botswana in a friendly in April, and then we went to Liechtenstein in July. We played two friendlies there and now three matches here. So yeah, five matches in all competitions and it’s good for us.
“Although, you would expect a national team to compete more regularly internationally. So, we hope that 2025 is going to bring us that. We want to see how best we can expose more talent and more girls to this level of competition and maybe bring a younger squad to Cosafa next year.”
It was a day of goals on Monday, as already qualified Banyana Banyana slammed Seychelles 8-1 at the Madibaz Stadium to make it three out of three wins in the group phase.
Holders Malawi made sure of their progress to the semi-finals with a one-sided 9-0 walloping of Mauritius to finish top of Group B and join hosts South Africa in the last four.
The Scorchers ran riot for the highest score at the annual tournament since they beat Lesotho 9-0 in the 2020 edition, which was also hosted in Gqeberha.
Botswana were held to a goalless draw by a 10-man Madagascar in Monday’s other fixture.
Monday also marked the first day that video assistant referee was used in this year’s tournament, brought in for the decisive group games in yet another ground-breaking innovation from Cosafa.
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