Namibia

Namibia 2012-13 Home
Namibia 2019-21 Home
Namibia 2021-23 Home
Namibia 2021-23 Away

Sometimes the inspiration for a football shirt design is unclear, sometimes it is not. Here, Puma took 1 look at the Namibian flag, saw the Sun in the top left and went all out on that alone. At least, that’s my assumption of what happened. The sleeves and rear of the shirt are plain, the older FA logo is cool, but rather understated and that’s really all there is. But the endlessly tiled Sun pattern makes for a cool enough shirt. I’m not going to call it revolutionary, but I like it.

Used across the later stage of 2014 World Cup qualification and all of the 2015 AFCON qualifiers, the latter did not go well. Namibia won 1-0 at home but Congo knocked them out immediately with a 3-0 in the away match. For the world Cup, drawn against Nigeria, Malawi and Kenya, the Namibians were not expected to compete for the play-off spot from 1^st place. They didn’t, with 1-0 away losses to Nigeria and Kenya, a 0-0 away draw to Malawi to make up for a 1-0 home loss, a 1-0 home win against Kenya and an impressive 1-1 home draw to Nigeria. It left them bottom, and yet only 2 points from 2^nd. Not great, but not terrible.

Next up, another calm, frontal design. Either based on the waves of the sea across their vast coastline or the vast sand dunes that make up much of said coastline. All rather relaxing, really. Also extends nicely to the edge of the shirt, without any strangeness around the collar like in the previous shirt. The cut-up Umbro logo makes for an interesting shoulder pattern and the striking eagle a more dramatic FA logo. The rear of the shirt remains plain, but there is, at least, a Namibian flag. Another decent shirt.

The design debuted in the 2019 AFCON, where Namibia faced a brutal group with Morocco, Ivory Coast and South Africa. A late own goal led to a 1-0 loss to Morocco, a result which was replicated in the match against South Africa. The Ivory Coast match was their chance to sneak through in 3^rd, but they lost 4-1. While they did manage to claw it back to 2-1, 2 late goals undid them. Not an unexpected set of results, all things considered, but they’ll feel hard done by to have got no points.

Now here’s a wild one. Let’s get one thing out the way first though, yes the back of the shirt is completely plain. But the front, woah. For the home, we’ve got a stylised paint stripe in the colours (and order) of the flag coming down off the right shoulder across the Umbro logo. The flag itself moves from the rear of the shirt to front and centre and the FA logo, while the same as before, has a giant cousin fading away as you go down the shirt. Throw in some sort of camouflage style stripes across the top half and you’ve got quite a shirt. The away uses the stylised stripes more prominently and simplifies things with just a camouflage style pattern all down the front. Both are pretty great.

Used across 2023 AFCON qualifiers, Namibia gained a huge boost with Kenya’s suspension, leaving them requiring only 2^nd place from a group with Cameroon and Burundi to qualify. A 1-1 draw at home to Burundi was a worrying start but their 1-1 away draw and subsequent 2-1 home win against Cameroon were huge results and qualified them there and then despite losing 3-2 in Burundi. An excellent achievement, albeit one tempered by some shaky results and Kenya’s ban.

Usually a middling side in Africa, Namibia have a few results to their name but don’t often stand out. They’ve never particularly threatened a World Cup qualification, but typically take a few positives results home with them regardless. Their AFCON record comes out somewhat better with a respectable 4 tournament appearances from 15 qualification attempts. The only possible disappointment is that the latest qualification didn’t match up to the 10 year pattern of the previous ones. 1998 and 2008 brought a draw and 2 losses, while 2019 was the first AFCON where they scored no points. 2023 has started off considerably more impressively, grabbing their first ever win in the tournament. Namibia started off the COSAFA Cup excellently with two runners-up and a 4^th place finish in the first 3 tournaments! Since then they’ve struggled to live up to the early days with mostly round 1/group stage exits. 2015 and 2022 brought them back to glory though, with them taking the 2015 title and an extra time final loss in 2022 to Zambia. They’ve also managed 2 CHAN appearances, including a quarter-final, but otherwise are fairly limited in that theatre. Rarely the best side but similarly rare for them to be the worst.

The record of their women’s team sits a little worse, but otherwise relatively similar. They’ve been one 2-legged match from a WAFCON a few times, losing the 2022 matchup on away goals only, but also have a few withdrawals after one-sided results. 2014, however, saw them host the WAFCON and therefore debut. They opened up with a 2-0 win over Namibia but followed that up by conceding late goals to lose 3-1 to the Ivory Coast and lost 2-0 to eventual champions Nigeria. In COSAFA they’ve never registered 0 wins, but only once escaped the initial stage, coming runners-up in 2006. Men’s youth football has been a little less successful than the senior team. The U23 side have never threatened Olympic qualification, not qualifying for an U23 AFCON to date. The U20 side managed to just about qualify for the 2021 AFCON, taking a draw from the CAR but otherwise losing their other matches to get sent home. Otherwise, the U17s match the U23s in failing to qualify for any AFCON. Again there’s a little more success in COSAFA, with 2 runners-ups (2010 and 2020) at U20 level and a penalty shoot-out title in 2016 at U17 level. Their women’s sides tend to take part, but rarely progress, with the U17 side being a little more 50-50 on participation. COSAFA tournaments are much rarer, but results have been closer, the disastrous 2022 U17 tournament excepted.

While Namibia have no history in futsal, they are set to try and qualify for the 2024 futsal AFCON as their formal debut in the sport. Despite their abundance of coastal sand, they’ve never tried out beach soccer to date either.

Not expected to qualify for the 2022 World Cup, they were drawn in the preliminary round. Eritrea were fairly readily dealt with to take them to a group with Senegal, Togo and Congo. Hardly believed to compete for the play-off spot for the group winner, they competed reasonably with Togo and Congo while Senegal ran off into the distance. 3^rd place is neither overly impressive, nor too bad, just as they tend to do. Good enough.