Brave Warriors win over Botswana a boost to their 2018 CHAN campaign
The Brave Warriors over the weekend trounced Botswana’s Zebras in an international friendly match played at the Sam Nujoma Stadium.
A brace from Peter Shalulile and a goal by Roger Katjiteo propelled the Brave Warriors to a well-deserved 3-1 win.
Prior to the game, the Brave warriors coach, Ricardo Mannetti had indicated that the game was set to test his charges in preparations for the 2018 CHAN finals set for January next year.
The Brave Warriors will now wait and see who they will play in November as coach Ricardo Mannetti revealed that there will possible be two international friendlies for the team next month.
According to the Brave Warriors, captain Ronald Ketjijere the game was necessary in their preparation tactics. “As you know of our situation at home, it was a good run for us. No football going on and for us it’s about getting the momentum going with more game time and training in preparations for the upcoming tournament in January”.
Ketjijere on the football associations website also identified some areas of concern for the team such as lose of concentration at crucial time of the game, something they will need to work on.
“Despite the win, it was important for us to identify issues such as wrong passes and lapses of concentration and therefore these games can help us make things right and hopefully we get more games and try to perfect our game and go for the CHAN finals and try to do our best as well,” said Ketjijere.
The 2018 African Nations Championship will be the 5th edition of the finals, a biennial football tournament organized by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) exclusively featuring players from the respective national championships. It is scheduled to take place between 12 January and 4 February 2018 with a new host to be announced this month, after CAF striped Kenya off the hosting rights due to lack of progress with preparations. Ethiopia, Morocco and Equatorial Guinea are contesting hosting the finals.
DR Congo are the defending champions but failed to qualify for the first time ever after losing to Congo on away goals rule.
