Brave Gladiators bounced back from their defeat in the opening game of the 2022 Council of Southern African Football Associations (Cosafa) Women’s Championship to Zambia, by beating Eswatini 5-1 at the Nelson Mandela Stadium in Port Elizabeth.

Woman of the match on Sunday and captain, Zenatha Coleman missed one penalty and scored another as winger Ivone Kooper scored a brace while Memory Ngonda and Veweziwa Kotjipati each scored one to lead Namibia to a well-deserved victory.

The Gladiators started slowly allowing the Swati to have all the possession in the middle of the park.

When the Gladiators got going, they made light work of their opponents with Coleman providing an inch-perfect pass to Kooper who had the easiest task of passing the ball into the net in the 22nd minute to give Namibia the lead.

Two minutes later Ngonda added the second for the Gladiators, after cheekily scoring in the near corner from a tight angle when everyone expected her to cross to her better-positioned teammates.

Swaziland made a change in midfield removing Simile Marks and replacing her with Simangele Hlatshwayo to stabilise the midfield, a move which started to pay off with Melissa Matheus called to make a double save within the space of a minute.

Swaziland then pulled one back with a minute of halftime to leave the game 2-1 at the break.

Right at the restart Namibia was awarded a penalty, but Coleman blasted her effort over the bar before Kooper added her second in the 64th minute before scoring the other with the last kick of the game.

Kotjipati scored the fourth with a cool finish from a Ngonda pass in the 73rd minute with her last touch of the game before being hauled off for Juliana Blou.

Speaking after the match, coach Paulus Shipanga said the team had shown improvement from their defeat by Zambia.

“We got the goals that we wanted, but we could have had more. We gave away a similar goal to the one we conceded to Zambia. Our wingbacks had moved up and left gaps at the back,” he said.

Namibia will now play Lesotho on Tuesday in a game they will need to win to advance to the semi-finals of this year’s tournament.

Source: The Namibian Press Agency