Brave Warriors mentally ready for Mozambique

WINDHOEK, 10 OCT – National men’s senior football team coach, Ricardo Mannetti said his team is mentally prepared to face Mozambique in their African Cup of Nations (Afcon) qualifier on Saturday.
The Brave Warriors 26-man squad is currently in camp at a high-performance centre in South Africa ahead of their clash with Mozambique in Maputo.
Mannetti told Nampa on Tuesday that at the moment, all is going well in the camp and they have worked a lot on the players’ mentality as well as attitude ahead of this crucial Afcon qualifier match.
“As we all know, we have struggled in the past when it comes to away matches so I have really put a lot of emphasis on talking to the boys because Mozambique is really a very difficult place to go to as the humidity, the weather and the fans are very intimidating,” said Mannetti.
The coach added that all his players arrived in camp on Monday, apart from Hendrik Somaeb who is excluded from the team.
“We have a camp in South Africa and Somaeb couldn’t be in the team because he has been blacklisted from entering South Africa during the time he stayed and played his football here,” he said.
The coach added that they had plans of booking the player a flight ticket from Serbia, where he is currently based, to Mozambique but he picked up an injury over the weekend while playing for his club.
“We are confident that Somaeb will recover soon and we will then include him in our training squad for the Niger game in November this year,” Mannetti added.
He said despite not having Somaeb in the squad, they have a good strike force that will see them through the two games against Mozambique.
Apart from the Saturday encounter, Namibia and Mozambique will clash again on 16 October at the Sam Nujoma Stadium in Windhoek.
(NAMPA)