Nees Satisfied With Zimbabwe's "Ugly" 1-0 Win Over Namibia
Zimbabwe’s national senior men’s football team coach Michael Nees appeared satisfied with grinding out a narrow 1-0 victory over Namibia in the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers on Thursday.
Nees conceded that the match was an “ugly” affair, but insisted that the most important outcome was securing the win.
The match, played behind closed doors at Orlando Stadium in Johannesburg, was largely dominated by Namibia for extended periods. The solitary goal of the game was scored by Khama Billiat in the 34th minute.
Speaking to journalists after the match, Nees conceded that the team had made “technical mistakes” throughout the encounter.
However, he declared that the priority was to come away with the three points, regardless of the aesthetic quality of the performance. Said Nees:
The game was no beauty contest. It was a hard fight that we had anticipated. Because there were no spectators allowed, we knew that it was going to be a fight; not a beauty contest, and at half-time we said okay today we also had some technical mistakes, and let’s accept. We just have to win no matter how it looks.
Today we were a bit more lucky because we were fighting, we had luck at the right time and no bad luck at the wrong time and that’s all we could do, to fight until the end and today we got a deserved result for that reason
The narrow victory over Namibia propelled Zimbabwe to the top of Group J in the AFCON qualifiers, with five points – one point clear of Cameroon and Kenya, who are set to face off this Friday at the Japoma Stadium in Douala.
Namibia, meanwhile, remain the only team in the group without a single point after suffering their third consecutive loss.
Coach Nees did not appear overly concerned about his team’s lack of preparation ahead of the return fixture against Namibia, scheduled for Monday evening at the same venue. He said:
I’m not that worried. But you must see the circumstances our game was taking place. Today is Thursday (yesterday) and I only had one training session with the full squad.
One hour in this stadium where you cannot even train set-pieces because you don’t know who is sitting in the stadium. That’s all that we could do.
A win for either Cameroon or Kenya will ensure that Zimbabwe enters their matchday 4 encounter against Namibia on Monday in second position in the group standings.
With only the top two teams from each group set to qualify for the 2025 AFCON finals in Morocco, Zimbabwe’s victory over Namibia has put them in a strong position, but they will still need to secure another three points in the return fixture to bolster their chances of reaching the continental tournament.
More: Pindula News
