Namibia coach, Riccardo Manneti faced the media after his team booted the Warriors out of CHAN at the National Sports Stadium on Sunday.
ON WHAT THE WIN MEANS TO NAMIBIA
That (the win) will be massive especially when you look at the situation with the Namibian football currently it’s not on a high with all our domestic problems back home. This will be just massive and it will be very good for the players because we have been training for the past three months because of our situation. We could not have it any other way. Three months of hard work is stating to pay-off
ON CHALLENGES BACK HOME
Back home we haven’t had a league running since last year April. So we had to take these players, put them in camp, feed them and get them to be mentally prepared and all that. It was very tough for us for the past year and half. The only matches we got as a country or as a team was at COSAFA, for most of them this was the second or third match for over a year.
ON THE WARRIORS
The Zimbabwean team was better than us, technically they have very good players and as a team they have more depth than us and also from the match fitness point of view. I count myself fortunate and I am very proud of this achievement to beat a powerhouse like Zimbabwe, I’s a big achievement for Namibia. It’s not everyday that you beat a country like Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe were better prepared throughout the year than us, they had a league running and have depth. You dropped some players that were even playing at COSAFA to bring players that were playing for CAPS United in the Champions League, we don’t even have clubs playing in the Champions League for that matter. Individually and as a team have better players than Namibia but on the day Namibia had a better fight, we wanted it more.
