Likuena beat Namibia to book a date with Angola
Lesotho clinched a 4-3 penalty victory over Namibia after the two countries were tied to a one-all aggregate score in the two legged first round contest of the African Nations Championship.
Likuena, as the Lesotho Senior team, is affectionately known, drew first blood in the first leg fixture courtesy of a solitary goal by Hlompho Kalake, but Namibia was able to equal the tie winning the reverse fixture by the same margin through a Lawrence Doeseb second half strike.
Lesotho will now face Angola in the second round of the CHAN qualifiers comprising of only players plying their trade in each country’s domestic league.
The penalty victory over the Brave Warriors, who were seeking their third CHAN qualifications, means Lesotho maintains their status of never been eliminated in the first round since their first participation in the CHAN qualifiers
The Leslie Notši’s coached side were clinical during the shootout with all the first four penalty takers putting the ball in the back of the net while Godwin Eiseb and Charles Hambira missed their spot kicks.
Lesotho will face Angola in the next round of the competition with the winner guaranteed a ticket to the next year’s tournament to be co-hosted by Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.
Notši praised his charges for showing character against a wounded Namibia to win the match on penalties and secure a spot in the second round of the competition, where they will face Angola.
“I think the problem of not creating goal scoring opportunities and not being clinical still showed, but for the fact we created a few and the Namibia goalkeeper making good saves, it’s a situation, where we are saying, there is an improvement but there is a lot of room for improvement,” Notši said.
“We are satisfied in the manner which everyone that was given the opportunity performed and yesterday’s match, which we believe was final to us, we were expecting a very tough encounter.
“They pushed us to the limit hence I think we had to go penalties. Our boys showed character and absorbed the pressure of the stage,” he said.
