BRAVE Warriors interim head coach Bobby Samaria says as they head to the 2020 CAF African Nations Championship they are looking to improve on the quarter-final finish during their tournament debut two years ago.
Reacting to Monday’s draw held in Yaounde, Cameroon which again pitted Namibia against neighbours Zambia alongside Tanzania and Guinea in Group D, Samaria said his charges can better their unexpected run to the quarter-finals in Morocco.
Unfancied Namibia shocked Ivory Coast and Uganda to finish second behind Zambia before host Morocco, who won the competition, ended the Brave Warriors fairytale run in controversial circumstances.
They were seen as rank outsiders then but on the back of that debut performance, the Brave Warriors head to Cameroon in April as one of the sides to watch despite having again qualified for a second successive Chan with no competitive football due to a long running domestic upheaval.
The hosts kick off the competition, which exclusively features players from each nation’s respective national championships, on 4 April against Zimbabwe.
“We go there to show Africa we have learnt a lot over the years. It will be a test of character and we need go and give our best for the country,” Samaria said in an interview with nfa.org.na on Monday.
Like his predecessor Ricardo Mannetti, who also took Namibia to the Africa Cup of Nations last year, Samaria has had to be proactive and pitch camp early to compensate for the lack of active football.
Over 30 players have been in camp since 10 February preparing for Chan. Samaria will name his final 23 man squad for the tournament at the end of the training camp on 21 March.
He is aware that emulating that benchmark will be a tough ask with a relatively inexperienced rag-tag side which retains a handful survivors from the class of 2018.
“We remain the underdogs yet again. We don’t have an active league and we not known to be a force within Africa. We will try and do better than the last time and like all the nations there, we will try to go as far as possible,” explains Samaria. Namibia begin their campaign with a clash against Guinea, who beat them 2-0 in 2021 Afcon qualifying last year, before taking on Tanzania and then Zambia. The dates and venues have not been determined yet.
The Brave Warriors are keen to get off to a positive start to lessen the pressure when the southern African derby takes place.
In 2018, Zambia and Namibia played out a 1-1 stalemate in their final group game after victories over Uganda and Ivory Coast in their first two matches to reach the quarter-finals.
“Hopefully by the time we play them [Zambia], we will have qualified for the next round. Guinea and Tanzania will be tough games for us, they have strong leagues and they have eliminated powerhouses, so we will not take them lightly at all,” Samaria said in his assessment of their rivals.
The event will be hosted by the cities of Yaounde, Douala and Limbe and will also serve as a warm-up for Cameroon ahead of the arrival of the Africa Cup of Nations (CAN) next year.
The 2019 edition of the CAN was moved from Cameroon to Egypt after delays to infrastructure works needed for the tournament to take place.
The country is also faced with two bloody conflicts, AFP reported. In the north of the country, assaults from jihadist group Boko Haram have intensified in recent months, while more than 3 000 people have died and at least 700 000 have been forced to flee their homes since October 2017 as English-speaking separatist groups clash with security forces.
The 2020 African Nations Championship groups are as follows: Group A – Cameroon, Mali, Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe;
Group B – Libya, DR Congo, Congo, Niger; Group C – Morocco, Rwanda, Togo, Uganda; Group D – Zambia, Guinea, Namibia, Tanzania.
