Premiership race as tight as it can be

Football
Young African remains the only unbeaten team and has conceded the least amount of goals of any team so far – just six.
Jesse Kauraisa
  • 1 Day Ago
The Debmarine Namibia Premiership is delivering yet another exciting season of football, with all clubs in the top half of the table still within touching distance.

Tuesday night’s match between the two front-runners Young African and African Stars still kept things more interesting when they played to a 1-1 draw at the Independence Stadium.

The result pushed both teams to 23 points, with African Stars placed first due to a superior goal difference.

The defending champions African Stars still have one match in hand over their close rivals Young African FC that find themselves in second place.

African Stars coach Benedictus Haoseb admitted that he would have loved to win this match in order to create some breathing space.

“Yes, we would have wanted to extend our points at the top, but we unfortunately dropped the points at home following this draw with our title rivals.

“We will continue working hard, because we know that the other teams are closer and we need to consistently get points on the board.

“We are going back to the training ground to work on shortcomings in order to get the points that we need in our next matches,” Haoseb said.



Unbeaten

Young African FC remains the only unbeaten team in the Debmarine Premiership after the 13 matches they have played so far.

Young African have won five of their 13 matches while their season has been overwhelmed with a total of eight draws. They have conceded the least amount of goals of any team so far – just six.

Coach Marley Ngarizemo maintains that his team will continue to improve as the season progresses and has played down protecting the unbeaten record for now.

“It is nice to have an unbeaten record in the league for now but that is not what our focus is all about for now.

“As a club we know that it is not easy to maintain an unbeaten record for an entire season and we are therefore working hard towards the points and not only worry about the defeats.

“Taking a point back to Gobabis against the team that last weekend beat us in the MTC Maris Cup final is not a bad result and I am proud of the boys for the fighting spirit even though the final took a lot out of the players,” Ngarizemo said.



Tight top seven

African Stars and Young African are not the only teams that are in good positions. In fact, the top seven teams in the league are all very tight and are currently only separated by four log points.

Khomas Nampol (22 points), Mighty Gunners (21), Ongos (20), Unam FC (20) and Tigers (19) points all have the potential of getting to the top of the table in one weekend of double header matches.

It is for this reason football fans have a reasonale expectation that this season will once again go down to the wire, since it is still quite early for clubs to start dreaming about the title hopes.

Football fan Jean Angula believes the real favourites will eventually emerge during the second round.

“I know the race is very tight right now, but as we have seen in the past, some clubs will start dropping more points and those that are more consistently stronger will eventually compete for the title,” Angula said.