Experienced Ongos FC winger Thomalina Adams and Khomas Nampol defender Lilie Kasheeta yesterday joined the Brave Gladiators squad in Johannesburg, South Africa for the 2023 Cosafa Women’s Championship.
Gladiators head coach Paulus Shipanga called up the two to fill the vacant spots that opened up after star player Zenatha Coleman and Veweziwa Kotjipati returned to their respective European clubs.
In an interview with the Namibia Football Association, Shipanga said he believes the duo “are equally capable” to help deliver the desired results.
“The two players arrived on Wednesday from Namibia and have been blending in well with the rest of the squad. Adams is a flexible player, she can play any position and this is the type of diversity and adaptability we want to see in the national set-up. Kasheeta was with the team last year at Cosafa and she displayed great character and discipline,” Shipanga said of the replacements.
No serious injuries have been reported and the camp is in high spirits, with all the players looking forward to the tournament.
The Gladiators were semi-finalists last year but lost 1-0 to South Africa, before a 2-1 defeat to Tanzania in the third-place play-off.
This year’s tournament will be staged in Johannesburg from 4 to 15 October and Namibia is drawn in group C, consisting of Botswana, Zimbabwe and Lesotho.
The Gladiators will open their Cosafa campaign against the Mares of Botswana on Saturday, followed by an encounter against Zimbabwe on 9 October, before rounding off their group stage matches with Lesotho on 11 October.
VAR DEBUT
Cosafa announced it will be introducing the maligned Video Assistant Referee (VAR) system at the tournament.
It is the first time the system has been used in a COSAFA tournament – albeit from the semifinals onwards – with the plan to introduce it for all tournaments in the future.
Cosafa referees manager Felix Tangawarima is running a five-day all-female course for VAR training for referees and gives his views on why this is so important.
Tangawarima said: “It is important we train our officials in the use of VAR, because CAF and FIFA are looking for licensed officials and we don’t want our referees from the region to be left out. We want them to be on the same footing as their peers across the continent. COSAFA will be one of the first regions to implement VAR for its tournaments, there are only some North African countries who have it already. So this is very exciting for us and the referees, I think they cannot wait to use it in matches.”
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