Brave Gladiators suffered their second succesive defat at the 2022 Council of Southern Africa Football Associations (Cosafa) Senior Women’s Championship on Sunday, going down 2-1 to Tanzania in the third-place play-off.
The tournament, which concludes on Sunday with a final between hosts South Africa and Zambia, started on 31 August in Port Elizabeth, South Africa and saw the Gladiators kick off the tournament with a defeat to Zambia.
They followed it up with victories over Eswatini and Lesotho to make it into the semi-finals, before facing South Africa, who knocked them out of the competition.
In the match on Sunday, Tanzania went ahead in the first half, when Christer John Bahera’s thunderbolt shot deceived Melisa Matheus in goal for Namibia to make it 1-0 within five minutes.
With Namibia playing against the wind, Tanzania enjoyed the lion’s share of ball possession, but Namibia equalised in the 23rd minute when Zenatha Coleman’s speculative cross was headed into the back of the net by Tanzania’s Aisha Juma Mnunka to leave the scores tied at 1-1 at halftime.
The second half saw Namibia take advantage of the wing by pressing their opponents deep into their half, but failed to create any meaningful chances.
Coleman and Asteria Angula were the shining lights of the Gladiators, but were let down by their colleagues, especially substitute Julian Blou, who failed to inject the much-needed spark upfront.
That allowed Tanzania to grow in confidence, with Mnunka turning from villain to hero, as a speculative shot from her took a wicked deflection, beating Matheus in the 87th minute to give Tanzania a 2-1 lead.
The result sees Tanzania finish third in the tournament, while Namibia had to settle for fourth.
Gladiators coach, Paulus Shipanga, was unimpressed with the substitutes and the result, saying he had expected better from the players who came off the bench.
“We could have done better. Our substitutes let us down today. They failed to claim a place in the team. We wanted this third-place finish,” Shipanga said.
This, however, is the Gladiators’ best performance at the tournament in five years, having consistently failed to advance past the group stages over that period.