Africa-Press – Namibia. AFRICAN Stars midfielder Janja Maharero and his coach Marvin Mbakera say the Debmarine Namibia Premiership title is not yet secured for the runaway log leaders.
Still unbeaten, Stars have 49 points, which is 12 more than second-placed Blue Waters, after 19 matches played each and 11 more to go.
Starlile continued their push for the title courtesy of a 1-0 victory over Civics on Friday night followed by Sunday’s shock goalless stalemate against bottom club Citizens. Defender Romario Ndjavera nodded in the only goal against Civics.
Rivals Blue Waters took maximum points over the weekend, overpowering Unam 5-0 on Saturday before edging Tura Magic 4-3 in a thrilling Sunday afternoon encounter.
“It’s not over yet. We still have to keep working. We still have six or seven games that we have to push in order to guarantee the league title, so we’ll just have to keep working,” said Maharero.
His coach Mbakera noted that his side has struggled for goals from open play since the resumption of the premiership’s second round.
However, they are not taking the foot off the pedal. He attributed Sunday’s dropped points to making wholesale changes to the side.
“We have worked hard. It’s just a bit of patience [needed]. We can’t now not credit these boys because of this. The statistics we’ve achieved [so far], it’s massive. So, we continue, the goal is to make sure that we pick up as many points as possible. We’re unlucky we dropped two points but we move on. The league still has a lot of games to be played, so we move on,” said Mbakera.
Unam have 33 points and held on to third position after bouncing back with a hard-fought 1-0 victory over third-bottom Eleven Arrows on Sunday.
Mighty Gunners on 31 points, Okahandja United (31) and Life Fighters (26) complete the top six.
The Gunners stay fourth thanks to Sunday’s 3-1 win over record Namibian champions Black Africa (17) who slipped down to second-last.
Gunners were leading 2-1 against Young African (22) on Saturday evening before the game was called off “due to bad lighting” at the Mokati Stadium.
Okahandja United were held 1-1 by Young African at home, while Life Fighters away matches at Orlando Pirates (24) on Saturday and Tigers the following day were called off “due to unforeseen circumstances”.
Elsewhere, Tigers resurgence under new coach James Britz hit a snag after being held 1-1 at home by Julinho Sporting. Tigers dropped a position to 10th and a point behind Julinho, who are on 24 points.
“We played three games, we have seven points out of nine. Not too bad, but not what we expected. We wanted to go for all three but unfortunately it did not happened,” Britz said.
Julinho ended their trip to Windhoek on a high note after beating Pirates 3-2 on Sunday.
In other Sunday results, Civics (22) beat Young Brazilians (23) 2-0, with the latter having edged Citizens (4) 1-0 the day before.
The log is attached.
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