Football: Cosafa Castle Cup-The Pirates get ready for second appearance |17 July 2006

The team will leave next week for Namibia, the host country of group C matches in the tournament involving member countries of the Council of Southern Africa Football Associations (Cosafa).

The Pirates clearly lacked depth as they lost 0-3 at the Georges V Stadium in Mauritius in their first ever clash against South Africa in their baptism of fire in the Cosafa Castle Cup last year.

Drawn in group C alongside Namibia, Malawi and Zambia in this year’s tournament, The Pirates are fresh from winning the Tri-Nation tournament organsisd by the Seychelles Football Federation (SFF) as part of activities to celebrate the country’s 30th anniversary of Independence.

All hopes of progressing further in the tournament rest on the players who gave a good showing in 2-1 victories over Mauritius and Tanzania last month.

They will play hosts Namibia on Saturday July 22 and Zambia will entertain Malawi on the same day. The winners of the two matches will face each other the next day for a place in the next phase of the competition. The losers will play in the third place play-off match.

Twenty-four players have been following a training camp at the SFF’s training centre at Roche Caïman and only 20 will make the team for the trip to Namibia tomorrow.

Coach Raoul Shungu has said that he will reveal his final squad after “all the players have had the opportunity to train extensively with the team”. 

The team are training twice daily. Fifteen of the 24 players called for national team training were present for the first session last Friday morning but all 24 players were to be present for the remaining sessions afternoon and until the end of the trip as they were to be released from work.
St Louis’ defender Jonathan Bibi is being bothered by a minor injury that should not keep him out of the squad, but he was forced to sit out Friday morning’s session.

Denis Barbé, who was out injured for the recent Tri-Nation tournament, has recuperated as well as goalie Nelson Sopha who sat out The Pirates’ clash against Tanzania after being stretchered off in the game against Mauritius with a head injury.

St Michel’s wing back Alex Nibourette is still out injured and has been ruled out for the tournament.

It must be noted that Seychelles crossed path with Namibia in 2000 in the qualifiers for the 2002 World Cup co-hosted by Japan and South Korea. After a hard-fought 1-1 draw in the home leg, Seychelles succumbed to a 0-3 defeat in Namibia in the return leg encounter.

Four players –  Nelson Sopha, Philip Zialor, Verna Rose, Jude Ladouce and Godfrey Denis – are the survivors of the team who played in those two matches.

G. J.