Football African Nations Championship (Chan) – preliminary round return leg |29 March 2010
The Pirates will meet either Zimbabwe or Swaziland during the weekend of May 21-23 before playing away on June 4-6. Zimbabwe went into yesterday’s second leg match with a 2-1 advantage earned in an away victory.
After scoring with a 56th minute diving header in the home leg at Stad Linite on Saturday March 13 to give the Pirates a 1-0 win a fortnight ago, Wilnes Brutus was not on target in the Sam Nujoma Stadium on Saturday in front of 3,000 fans. It was captain Don Anacoura who scored the Pirates’ only goal.
According to newspaper reports from Namibia, the Pirates took the lead against the run of play when captain Anacoura won possession in midfield and beat a diving Athiel Mbaha with a 25-metre shot into the right hand corner of the net in the 26th minute (1-0).
Trailing by two goals, the Brave Warriors, who did the early attacking with wingers Eslin Kamuhanga and Heini Isaacks putting in some strong runs, had a corner scrambled away by the Seychelles defence before striking back.
After Jerome Louis came close, Heini Isaacks attacked into the penalty area and beat Seychelles’ advancing keeper Nelson Sopha to slam the ball into an empty net (1-1).
Reports added that the Brave Warriors bombarded the Seychelles goal in the second half and Tangeni Shipahu had a goal disallowed for offside in the 66th minute, while Isaacks shot was well saved by Sopha.
The Pirates were reduced to 10 in the 75th minute after Rachim Padayachy received a red card for a foul on Ralph Ellinger, but despite being a man down, they held on to the score, with keeper Sopha dealing well with the high balls launched into his box.
This is probably the first time in a long while the Seychelles national team have gone past the first hurdle of a major competition organised by the Confederation of African Football (Caf).
Hired by the Seychelles Football Federation to help make the Pirates shed the “whipping boys” tag, Dutch technical adviser Jan Mak, who has worked with Feyenoord his homeland, plotted well the team’s march into the Chan reserved for home-based players.
Although the return leg encounter turned out to be just as he had anticipated – a tight clash as the Brave Warriors came out with all guns blazing in search of goals in front of their fans – technical adviser Mak’s protégés held on to complete the job as they were prepared mentally and physically.
This is a very good sign for the Pirates, who unlocked their first success on home soil in nearly four years with the 1-0 win over Namibia.
Hopefully the best is yet to come for the team who are preparing for next year’s eighth Indian Ocean Island Games, slated here from August 5-14.
The maiden African Nations Championship, comprising only eight teams, was played in Ivory Coast last year with the Democratic Republic of Congo running out inaugural winners as they beat Ghana in the final.
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16 teams for the final stage
THE Pirates’ march into the final qualifying round of the African Nations Championship (Chan) gives them a good chance to be one of the three teams in Africa’s southern zone to make the final in Sudan from January 21 to February 10, 2011.
The other 13 teams will come form the other zones – central east zone three including hosts Sudan, central zone three, zone west B three, zone west two and zone north two.
Playing in the central zone, Cameroon have already qualified for next year's Chan after beating Congo 3-0 in Yaounde on Saturday to ensure a 4-1 aggregate victory.
Losers Congo will play the losers of the tie between DR Congo and Gabon in May for a chance to play at the tournament.
In the central east zone, Tanzania’s Taifa Stars thrashed Somalia 6-0 in Dar-es-Salam on Saturday to reach the final qualifying round of the competition. Somalia had earlier forfeited their home game because of the lack of security in their country.
Tanzania will next play Rwanda in the second round in May to decide who will qualify for the final stage.
Tony Odur scored a hat-trick as Uganda brushed Burundi aside in a 4-0 win for a 5-1 aggregate win to qualify for the last round.
G. G.