Namibia did not feature at either of the COSAFA Women’s Championships that were played in the last two years but will hope to showcase their potential in the Girls’ football competition at the Region 5 Games Maseru 2020.

It is an age-group that Namibia are attempting to improve in following the excellent recent success of their senior women’s national team, and they are hoping to unearth the next Zenatha Coleman at these Games.

The team has featured in the African qualifiers for the FIFA Women’s Under-17 World Cup twice before without success and will have another go ahead of 2022 tournament in India next year.

Their first showing was in 2012 when they lost 6-1 on aggregate to South Africa (1-1 & 0-5), before a better run in 2016. They defeated Botswana at the preliminary stage with a 2-1 away win and a 1-1 home draw giving them a 3-2 aggregate success.

That set up a meeting with African powerhouse Nigeria in the next stage, and they lost both legs, 4-0 and 5-0, in what was a tough encounter. They are back to try again in the 2022 preliminaries and will meet COSAFA rivals Zambia in the first round, which is scheduled for March.

Those two sides could well meet at the Region 5 Games Maseru 2020, which will provide them with the perfect dress rehearsal and opportunity to check each other out.

Namibia have been drawn in the three-team Group B in Lesotho and start their campaign against South Africa on December 4. They will then meet Mauritius two days later. Only the top two teams in each pool advance to the semifinals.