Collin Benjamin (born 3 August 1978) is a Namibian former professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby ...

who played as a

midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

. He spent most of his professional career with

Hamburger SV Hamburger Sport-Verein e.V. (), commonly known as Hamburger SV () or Hamburg (), is a German sports club based in Hamburg, with its largest branch being its football section. Though the current HSV was founded in June 1919 from a merger of three ...

while representing

Namibia Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ea ...

at international level. Benjamin represented Namibia at the

2008 African Cup of Nations The 2008 Africa Cup of Nations, also known as the MTN Africa Cup of Nations due to the competition's sponsorship by MTN, was the 26th edition of the Africa Cup of Nations, the biennial football tournament for nations affiliated to the Confederat ...

, earning 32 caps; he captained the team for several years. Benjamin was known for his speed and was mainly used for wing play as a defender. He was named as the head coach of the Namibia national team in June 2022, succeeding Bobby Samaria.https://www.goal.com/en-cm/news/collin-benjamin-ex-hamburger-sv-defender-named-as-new-namibia-coach/blt2a027020885afd5a After his 10 years at Hamburg Benjamin ended his playing career in Germany at 1860 Munich, where he then spent time in the club's coaching set-up. Benjamin, who won 41 caps for Namibia and captained his country, said he was up to the "daunting" challenge of coaching the Brave Warriors - but would require "resources to accomplish the task ahead" of him. Namibia began their 2023 Africa Cup of Nations qualifying campaign with a 1–1 draw against Burundi in neutral Johannesburg earlier in June 2022.

Honours

DFB-Ligapokal The DFL-Ligapokal (, officially Premiere Ligapokal , previously DFB-Ligapokal ) or the ''German League Cup'' was a German football competition that took place before the start of the Bundesliga season, featuring the top five teams of the previous ...

winner: 2003 Aside from representing Hamburg and 1860 Munich during his active days, Benjamin remains the only Namibian to play in the Uefa Champions League.

Managerial statistics

As of 17 July 2022. Note: win or lose by penalty shoot-out is counted as the draw in time.

References

External links

* 1978 births Living people Sportspeople from Windhoek Namibian footballers Namibian football managers Association football midfielders Namibia international footballers 2008 Africa Cup of Nations players F.C. Civics Windhoek players Hamburger SV players Hamburger SV II players TSV 1860 Munich players Bundesliga players 2. Bundesliga players Namibia national football team managers Namibian expatriate footballers Namibian expatriate sportspeople in Germany Expatriate footballers in Germany {{Namibia-footy-bio-stub