Tough assignment awaits Baby Gladiators 

Namibia’s under-17 women’s football team faces a tough assignment when they travel to Kenya today looking to overturn a 2-1 first leg deficit in their Fifa Under-17 World Cup qualifier.

After losing their first leg encounter 2-1 in Windhoek on Sunday, the ‘Baby Gladiators’ will now have to score at least two goals in Nairobi on Saturday if they hope to progress further in the competition, but coach Woody Jacobs says they still have a chance.

“In football there is always a chance, no matter the score. The fact that we scored a goal after their two early goals, shows we still have a chance. We didn’t know what to expect from Kenya, but now we have a clear idea of what they have and how strong they are, and we have to adapt to that,” he says.

“We have to give ourselves a good chance to do this, but we also know it’s going to be a tough one, because you can see Kenya is quite a strong team.

“You can see how much they’ve put into the development of women’s football, but I’m very optimistic, and at the same time also cautious,” Jacobs says.

In the first leg on Sunday, Kenya made an immediate impact, scoring two goals within the opening six minutes by Lindey Atieno and Faith Boke.

Namibia, however, did well to contain them, and in the second half opened their account with a late goal by Khloe Awases to give them hope ahead of the second leg encounter.

Jacobs substituted some players, bringing in more experienced individuals for some of the younger players, who were 15 years old, which helped Namibia get back into the game.

“It’s not about the age, it’s about the quality of the player. But then Brianna [Matthias] and Kanene [Tjizuu] got injured, and I think our midfield was outplayed, so we needed some reinforcements, and that’s what we did.

“Nanami [Uarije] and Cherifa [Garoes] were also taken off because we had a different approach, and we wanted to bring in some fresh legs to help us plug the holes we suffered from,” Jacobs says.

“I think that worked, because the substitutes did a very good job. They took the game to Kenya, we scored a goal through that, and we had better control of the game than in the first half,” he says.

After the match Jacobs says Kenya had a quality side.

“The girls haven’t played at this level before, and in the first 15 minutes we were all over the place, but when we settled we did better against a very good opponent. They’ve been to the under-17 Fifa World Cup and you could see with the players and quality they have in their team, I thought we were punching above our weight, so I need to give credit for the way these girls were fighting till the end,” Jacobs says.

“Despite the fact that we lost, for me it’s a win, because we had to pick up a distraught goalkeeper who made an error in the first minute. That for me is a win, because the way she responded after that, she kept us in the game and kept the hope alive,” he says.

The Kenyan team, also known as the Junior Starlets, made history two years ago when they became the first Kenyan team to qualify for a Fifa World Cup.

At the Fifa Under-17 World Cup in the Dominican Republic, they lost all their matches, going down 3-0 to North Korea, 2-0 to England, and 2-1 to Mexico.

Last year, they nearly repeated that feat, reaching the third round of the African qualifiers, before losing 4-1 on aggregate to Cameroon, who went on to represent Africa at the Under-17 World Cup in Morocco, alongside hosts Nigeria, Zambia and Ivory Coast.

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