Brave Warriors improve ranking

A jump of 30 places up the Fifa/Coca-Cola World Ranking has sharply reversed a slow but steady slide downwards for Namibia.

The Brave Warriors slipped almost 100 places from the high of 68 they reached when they participated at the 1998 CAF Africa Cup of Nations finals in Burkina Faso, but they suddenly bounced back up again to 137th place this month in the wake of their participation in the region’s Cosafa Castle Cup. Their 1-1 home draw with Seychelles, which unluckily ended in a 4-2 penalty shoot-out defeat, followed by a 3-2 win over Malawi in Katutura have been responsible for the change in attitude and given the side a lot of heart ahead of the start of their qualifying campaign for the 2008 Africa Cup of Nations.”We are keen to start fighting our way back,” says Collin Benjamin, one the country’s biggest football stars who plays for Hamburg SV in the German Bundesliga.”There is a lot to do still but we are determined to continue our rise.”Namibia, eliminated in the preliminary round of the qualifiers for the 2006 Fifa World Cup finals in November 2003, have suffered severely in the last years from a lack of competition and were without a coach for almost a year as they kicked their heels in self-imposed isolation.The Brave Warriors did not play a single international from May 2005 to mid-July this year but began their recovery in May with the appointment of Ben Bamfuchile as their new national coach.The former Zambian international, who had previously been in charge of his own country’s national side, has signed a four-year contract and been handed the demanding task of reviving football in Namibia.Despite its large land mass, however, Namibia has a population of just over 2 million and therefore only has a small pool of talent to choose from.Yet the export of many of its international players to the professional league in neighbouring South Africa, with several new players heading south at the start of this new season, hints that the upward trend might continue.There is also a new-found commitment to developing the national side from the Namibian Football Association, who have created a ‘Road to 2010’ plan as they seek to try and qualify for the next Fifa World Cup finals, which will be played on their doorstep.Fifa.comTheir 1-1 home draw with Seychelles, which unluckily ended in a 4-2 penalty shoot-out defeat, followed by a 3-2 win over Malawi in Katutura have been responsible for the change in attitude and given the side a lot of heart ahead of the start of their qualifying campaign for the 2008 Africa Cup of Nations.”We are keen to start fighting our way back,” says Collin Benjamin, one the country’s biggest football stars who plays for Hamburg SV in the German Bundesliga.”There is a lot to do still but we are determined to continue our rise.”Namibia, eliminated in the preliminary round of the qualifiers for the 2006 Fifa World Cup finals in November 2003, have suffered severely in the last years from a lack of competition and were without a coach for almost a year as they kicked their heels in self-imposed isolation.The Brave Warriors did not play a single international from May 2005 to mid-July this year but began their recovery in May with the appointment of Ben Bamfuchile as their new national coach.The former Zambian international, who had previously been in charge of his own country’s national side, has signed a four-year contract and been handed the demanding task of reviving football in Namibia.Despite its large land mass, however, Namibia has a population of just over 2 million and therefore only has a small pool of talent to choose from.Yet the export of many of its international players to the professional league in neighbouring South Africa, with several new players heading south at the start of this new season, hints that the upward trend might continue.There is also a new-found commitment to developing the national side from the Namibian Football Association, who have created a ‘Road to 2010’ plan as they seek to try and qualify for the next Fifa World Cup finals, which will be played on their doorstep.Fifa.com