Namibian national team defender Ananias Gebhardt says with the squad that was assembled by coach Hugo Broos, South Africa should have won the AFCON tournament.
The Baroka FC defender was part of the Namibia team that lost 4-0 to Bafana Bafana during the group stages.
"Bafana they were solid a unit, you could tell that they were using players that trained together every day," Gebhardt tells KickOff.
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"I think having many players from one club played a huge role in their team's cohesion. And not just ordinary players but quality players. They know how to play football and they've been playing in the African competitions for some time now, knowing the tough conditions helped them a lot when it came to AFCON. As our SADC representatives, we are happy for them. After we were knocked out we supported them as Cosafa.
"Honestly speaking, going all the way and winning the AFCON shouldn't be out of their reach. Like I said, the majority of the players in the Bafana starting XI just recently, won the African Super League. It wouldn't have surprised me if they won the AFCON. They could have easily gone all the way."
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Gebhardt also touched on Namibia's performance in the tournament that was held in Ivory Coast.
"It was a good experience and the second one for our generation, with the first one being in 2019. What we learned is at that level any simplest mistake gets punished and there is not that much time to recover, unlike in the league."
Gebhardt defends his Namibian teammate and Premier Soccer League's most lethal striker Peter Shalulile for failing to score a single goal for them in the AFCON.
"It's football by the way, there are times where you gonna score and there's times where you would be unable to do so. He is not the first one to not be able to score in a major competition and he won't be the last one.
"He did put a lot of hard work into his game during the AFCON, we shouldn't expect him to score in every game. Mind you, it was his goals that took us to the AFCON. We are blessed to have a player like him."
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