Africa-Press – Namibia. AFRICAN Stars sent out a warning to their Debmarine Premiership rivals after dominating a friendly tournament at the Unam Stadium over the weekend.
Stars entered two teams for the tournament – Samba Boys and Starlile – which both progressed to the final, where Samba Boys took the honours after beating Starlile 4-0.
In the opening matches on Saturday morning, Starlile beat Unam 1-0 through a goal by Koko Katjimune, while Samba Boys beat Tura Magic 5-3.
In the latter game the teams were tied 1-1 at the halftime break, but the Samba Boys edged ahead and maintained the lead throughout a high-scoring second half to qualify for the final.
Edmar Kamatuka, Titake Mbuende, Awilo Stephanus, Jandja Maharero and Mbakondja Tjahikika all scored for the Samba Boys, while Nehemia Ndengu (two) and Gregory Cloete replied for Tura Magic.
In the final, the Samba Boys emerged victorious after two goals by Manaze Salazar and one goal each from Jackson Jackson and Dynamo Frederick.
Stars’ coach Mervin Mbakera said the tournament had served its purpose.
“The objective of the exercise was for the players to get their match fitness back – you can practise as much as you like, but a game situation is the best teacher. The matches were all very competitive and it was good preparation for our upcoming league match against Life Fighters,” he said.
“The players showed a lot of speed and awareness, and even in the last match they maintained their aggressiveness and competitiveness, and that’s the fighting spirit we wanted,” he added.
Stars surged to the top of the Debmarine Premiership after beating Blue Waters 4-0 in their final match last month before the festive season and are currently four points ahead of second-placed Life Fighters, whom they meet next weekend in the league. Mbakera said they were well set for the rest of the season.
“We are exactly where we want to be – we’ve played seven matches and have 19 points so that’s an average of 2,7 points per match. The fact that Life Fighters are second on the log shows their pedigree and we will take that game very seriously. Our objective is to test ourselves in Africa and to do that we need to win the Premier League title so that we can qualify for the Champions League,” he said.
Tura Magic, meanwhile, finished third after beating Unam 4-0 in the bronze medal match, with Leandro Von Francois scoring two goals and Ndengu and Alex Kaongelwa one each.
Their stand-in coach Timo Tjongarero said he was pleased with their performances.
“The result was not so important – we wanted to see how the boys fair after the holidays, because we were a bit behind in terms of match fitness. In the first half of the season we had quite a lot of goal scoring opportunities that we could not convert, so we worked hard on our finishing this week, and that showed as we scored seven goals in two matches,” he said.
“We selected a lot of young players that we mixed with a few experienced guys for our first match, while the second match was more our first team. We are looking at two or three new players that we want to add to the team,” he added.
Life Fighters and Okahandja United, meanwhile, each recorded two victories in other warm-up matches at Outjo and Okahandja respectively, over the weekend.
At Outjo, Fighters beat African Lions 4-1 and Outjo Academy 1-0, while Okahandja beat Spoilers 2-0 and Tigers 3-2.
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