Uiseb’s Libyan affair

...Player hopes to revive career

Once regarded as one of Namibia’s most promising strikers, Terdius Uiseb is hoping a move to the previously unexplored Libyan Premier League will revitalise his career.

The striker rose to prominence while playing for Namibia’s Under-20 national team back in 2012.

He was part of a group that included Wangu Gome, who captained the side, and Edward Maova as goalkeeper.

Having turned 27 earlier this year, Uiseb can be regarded as being in the prime of his playing career.

But while he was touted as a rising star for close to a decade, he never quite managed to hit the right notes despite several moves to South Africa, where he had stints with Milano United and Stellenbosch in what is now known as the GladAfrica Championship.

Uiseb packs a mean left foot and can be clinical. He is quite pacey as well, marking him as a constant threat to opposing defenders.

Despite those great attributes, Uiseb has struggled to show form worthy of a senior national team call-up.

Move to Libya

The player, though, is hopeful that a move to Al-Tahaddi Sports Club in Libya will remind fans of what he brings to the table. Uiseb has signed to play football in the Libya Premier League for a season.

While many may regard this move as eye-catching due to the fact that this is the first time a Namibian will feature in that league, Uiseb’s choice of destination can be considered a step in the right direction.

The league has been ranked by the International Federation of Football History and Statistics (IFFHS) as the 56th highest in the world.

This makes it the eighth-highest ranked league in Africa, after the Nigerian Professional Football League (30th); Egyptian Premier League (34th); the Girabola in Angola (42nd); Algerian Ligue Professionnelle 1 (48th); the Zambia Super League (53rd); Tunisian Ligue Professionnelle 1 (54th) and Sudan Premier League (55th). Interestingly, the Libyan league has a better ranking than South Africa’s DStv Premiership.

The Libyan Premier League is contested by 24 teams divided into two groups of 12, with the two lowest-placed teams of each group relegated to the First Division.

As for the team itself, Al-Tahaddi Sports Club is based in Benghazi. They are a team in resurgence as they were relegated in the 2007/08 season. But they have won the Libyan Premier League three times in their history, while they have once reached the final of the Libyan Cup. They continue to be a household name in that country, with their home stadium being March 28 Stadium, which is said to have a capacity of 55 000.

Teams that dominate proceedings in that country are Al-Ittihad, who have won the league title a record 16 times, and Al-Ahly Tripoli, who have claimed league honours 12 times.

Two days’ training

Most fans would probably be wondering how the move to Libya came about. According to Namibia Football Network, which is representing Uiseb, the player was initially supposed to go elsewhere.

“The idea was to send him to South Africa and we got in touch with agents that side. But nothing materialised and the guys in South Africa recommended us to the Libyans. Uiseb then headed out there, only trained for about two days and then boom, he was signed,” the company explained.

The company said the decision to sign was made easier by the “professional set-up Al-Tahaddi have.”

“Nothing here in Namibia can compare with what they have that side. It is very close to what the top South African team have,” was the response regarding why the decision was so quick.

Namibia Football Network went on to state that they had done a lot of research to ensure that Uiseb will be in a safe space to focus on his football.

“We went to the Libyan embassy and also tried to find out how the on-the-ground situation is. Obviously when you google, you can find a lot of positive and negative things but our experience was that the environment is very conducive for football… You will find that earlier this month [Egyptian super star] Mohamed Salah was in Libya [to play in the 2022 FIFA World Cup qualifiers]. So if the best player in Africa can play there, things must be safe and that is also what we found,” the company stated.

Daily talks

It went on to further explain that while they are not in a position to physically be there with the player, Namibia Football Network is closely monitoring the progress of the player.

“We talk a lot and that means regular daily check-ups to find out how training is going, whether the team picked him up for training for the day and his general wellbeing. We also run errands for him and check up on his family to ease his mind. So this is not just a money thing, we are more like family and our partnership will go beyond his playing career,” it shared.

Uiseb is said to be eager to go back to the goal-scoring form that saw him end as the MTC Namibia Premier League top scorer in the 2015/16 season.

“Terry is a proven goal scorer… so he will be looking to continue on that form and to soon get in the national team framework to compete against the likes of Peter Shalulile and Benson Shilongo”, Uiseb’s representative concluded, highlighting that the Libyan Premier League is due to start within the next month, with the teams actively involved in many friendly matches in preparation for that.