WAFCON: Namibia coach Kakuva: ‘Zambia not good’

Namibia’s women’s football team coach Lucky Kakuva has taken a thinly-veiled dig at Zambia in the aftermath of the Gladiators’ 2-4 loss in South Africa on Wednesday.

The Gladiators coach seemed to undermine the Copper Queens after forward Rachel Kundananji’s hat-trick and Rachel Nachula’s strike secured them the away advantage. The Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (WAFCON) qualifying round first leg match took place at Dobsonville in Soweto.

The America-based stand-in captain and Nachula scored in the first half to give the Copper Queens a first-half 2-0 lead. However, Ivone Kooper and Zenatha Coleman struck for the Gladiators to bring the game to two-all.

How Kundananji bailed out Zambia against Namibia

Coach Nora Häuptle’s girls had to start all over again with Kundananji adding two more goals for Zambia to seal the victory.

Commenting on the match, Kakuva told the media in South Africa that he, at first, deployed a defensive approach to the game in fear of Zambia’s strength, only to realise that they were not as strong.

“Initially, our tactical decision was to play in transition; play a little bit deeper, but for one or two reasons, there was a lot of disorganization on the part of the girls because the fitness levels are not there. The opponent made the field a little bit big for us in the first half,” the coach explained.

The mentor for the Gladiators added that he tweaked his game-plan in the second-half while hoping to score more goals.

“At the same time, I realized that Zambia was not as good as I thought. It was from that perspective that I decided to say ‘let us play a little bit higher’. I said ‘let us introduce a high block’ hence we scored two goals,” he said.

“I think during that phase, Zambia [also scored] two goals. We had a clear opportunity to score a third goal, but it didn’t happen. They scored a third goal when our aim was to equalize and maybe get a winner, but [there] was a sucker punch, the opponent scored a fourth goal.”

Ahead of the second leg, Kakuva vowed to go all out attacking with the aim of scoring more goals.

Kakuka said: “Going forward, there are good opportunities for us playing in Zambia. We will approach the match with a different mentality because our aim is to score goals. It will be a difficult task but it is possible in football.”

Häuptle’s girls will host the return leg on Sunday at the Levy Mwanawasa Stadium in the mining town of Ndola. The overall winner over the two legs will progress to the WAFCON finals scheduled for next year.