Teamwork key for Cosafa Cup campaign – Kazapua

 By John Tuerijama
 

Loydt Kazapua, the captain of Namibia’s national football team, the Brave Warriors in Durban South Africa, says for the country to proceed beyond the group stages of the 2019 Council of Southern African Football Association (Cosafa) Cup, the team will have to work together as a unit, with little room for individualism.

Responding to questions earlier this week, Kazapua who was recently named the 2019 Cosafa Cup team captain, said he did not expect to be appointed skipper of the national side, “But I’m grateful for the opportunity. All we have to do is keep the spirit high in togetherness and we can achieve a lot at the tournament.” Regarding the role of captaincy in general, Kazapua said a good captain leads by example and needs to be open and get along with everyone, and most importantly be a responsible leader.  On whether his professional exploits with South African outfit Maccabi FC influenced head coach Collin Benjamin in appointing him captain, Kazapua said all he wanted was to represent his country with pride once called to take up national duty.

“Being with Maccabi FC taught me a lot of things, like being responsible and patiently waiting for your chance and learning new cultures, so they (technical team) proudly looked at that and decided to go with me and I’m grateful  for the chance given,” Kazapua said. “I had eight appearances with Maccabi FC which I was not happy with, so next season I’m hoping to improve on the season that just concluded.” Asked about the importance of  having two teams, the captain said the team for the Cosafa Cup currently underway is composed of players mostly between the ages of 23 and 25 years old and if the team does well the players might not even get to play in the African Nations Cup (CHAN), as some of the players might be offered professional contracts through the course of the tournament.

He said: “We appreciate the private sector involvement in the team and I urge more companies to invest in our football so that the national side qualifies for future International Federation of Football Associations (FIFA) World Cup one day, because to qualify for the world football showpiece we need investors so we can broaden our experience by playing the bigger teams on the African continent.” Reflecting on the 2-1 victory over Mozambique on Sunday, Kazapua said Mozambique was a great team but the Brave Warriors followed their instructions  by the coach and successfully executed the plan, as per the coach’s strategy. He said the match against Malawi on Tuesday was a crucial game that the Warriors needed to win. However, on Tuesday Malawi trounced Namibia by 2-1 seeing the Malawian outfit topping the group and setting up a quarter final clash against Zambia on Sunday.