Young Gladiators fired up for Uganda clash

Young Gladiators head coach Errol Damaseb has selected most of his squad from the U17 national team that featured at the Region 5 Youth Games and the U17 COSAFA Girls Championship. He is hopeful that the girls will perform well in their upcoming FIFA U20 Women’s World Cup qualifier against Uganda from Friday to Monday at the FUFA Stadium in Kadiba.“We are very excited to be back on the pitch. We decided to keep the same crop of players we had in the regional tournaments earlier this year. They have been playing together for the past year and are experienced and exposed to the type of competitions at this level.“The team has been in camp for over a week now, but the Windhoek-based players started training a month ago. We studied the Ugandan team and picked up that they play route one football, attacking from the wings, and we have worked around that in our training sessions. We are hoping to qualify for the next round,” said Damaseb.The tournament, scheduled for August next year, will feature 24 nations, including four representatives from Africa. A total of 38 African teams are vying for the four coveted slots, with the qualifiers set to unfold over four knockout rounds of home-and-away fixtures.Qualifiers formatFirst Round: The 12 lowest-ranked teams, based on previous U20 Women’s World Cup qualifying performances, will contest this round. The six winners will advance to join the 26 top-ranked teams exempt from the first round.Second Round: The six first-round winners and 26 exempted teams will form a pool of 32. These will battle it out for 16 spots in the third round.Third Round: The remaining 16 teams will compete in a knockout format to determine the eight teams advancing to the fourth round.Fourth Round: The final eight teams will play knockout ties, with the winners earning qualification for the 2026 FIFA U20 Women’s World Cup.

Young Gladiators fired up for Uganda clash

Comments

Namibian Sun 2025-09-16

Please login to leave a comment

Young Gladiators fired up for Uganda clash

Comments

Namibian Sun 2025-09-16

Please login to leave a comment

Login