Busy schedule for the Brave Warriors – three major qualifiers ahead
The men’s national senior football team will contest in the African Cup of Nations (AFCON) and the FIFA World Cup qualifiers in addition to the African Nations Championships (CHAN) qualifiers between now and November 2019, according to the schedule published by the Namibia Football Association.
The Confederation of African Football (CAF) this week released the dates for the road to Cameroon 2021 AFCON following the draw that took place recently and Namibia is in Group A together with Guinea, Mali, and winner of Liberia versus Chad clash to be contested in October.
The Brave Warriors will be at home in their opening game of the 2021 AFCON qualifiers against the winner of the preliminary encounter between Chad and Liberia on Match-day One and for Match-day Two, they will travel to Guinea Conakry. The hosting Associations will have to communicate a date from between 11-19 November 2019 to CAF to confirmation.
The qualifiers will then take a long break and only returns in between 31 August and 8 September 2020 with Match-Day 3 and Four where the Brave Warriors will travel to Mali and then host them in Windhoek.
Match-day 5 will be between 5 to 13 October 2020 as Namibia visit either Liberia or Chad for the penultimate Group a game while the final matches of the group will be contested on Match-day 6 between 9 to 17 November 2020. The first and the runner up of the 11 groups where the host is not playing will qualify to the final tournament to be hosted by Cameroon.
Meanwhile, Namibia will play Eritrea for the 2022 FIFA World Cup Finals Preliminaries between 02 to 10 September 2019 with the clash away for the Brave Warriors to happen first.
The 14 preliminary round winners and the 26 countries who received byes will be split into 10 groups of four after a fresh draw with the first matches next March. The draw for the group stages will be conducted after these preliminaries, and the matches of the group stages are expected to run from 23 until 31 March 2020 and 04 to 12 October 2020.
The winners from the 10 groups will then engage in five two-leg playoffs, with the winners qualifying for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
For the 2020 CHAN Qualifiers, Namibia takes a healthy 2-0 lead into Sunday’s return leg against Comoros Island. The winner of the tie will take on either Mozambique or Madagascar in the final round of the qualification between 20 September and 18 October 2019 to reach CHAN 2020 to be hosted by Ethiopia. Tickets for Sunday are selling for N$30. (NFA).
