Teary Mengo on qualifying for Indoor Hockey World Cup
The top trending clip this week is of an emotional national women’s hockey captain Magreth Mengo, who couldn’t hold her tears when Namibia beat South Africa 2-0 in the 2021 Women’s Indoor Africa Cup in Durban recently. Not only did the Namibians beat South Africa to be crowned African champions in a thrilling final, but they also qualified for next year’s Indoor Hockey World Cup in Belgium.
Namibia qualified alongside Australia, New Zealand, Belgium, Ukraine, Netherlands, Germany, Czech Republic, Belarus, Austria, Kazakhstan. Other teams’ fate lies in matches happening next month. “We are bringing it back home! This is more than hockey. It is unfortunate that only one African country is going
to the world cup. This is good hockey for Africa and I think we deserve to
be there but I am proud of my girls, of my nation, the journey and the
process - the effort they have put in,” said a teary Mengo.
In an interview with International Hockey Federation (FIH) she said it was a team effort.
“We worked hard to get together as a team, and we had each other’s’ backs. We are representing Africa and not just Namibia. We are going to show the standard of African hockey at world level,” she shared.
The 30-second clip shared by New Era received close to 2 000 likes and more than 300 shares on Facebook and other social media platforms and showers of comments, with many saying they have officially become hockey fans. “I’m officially a hockey fan, I’m done with football. Congrats ladies,” commented Aymar Linda Usizi. - psiririka@