Blog: Zambian football, Where to from here

The Zambia National team will miss out on a second successive Africa Cup of Nations tournament for the very first time since Zambia made its maiden appearance at the continental show piece in 1974. The Copper bullets were beaten home and away by Mozambique to effectively end their dream of participating in the 2019 edition.

Zambia missed out on the 2017 edition and will now miss out on the 2019 tournament. The copper bullets failed to get out of the group stage in 2013, A year after lifting the trophy and two years later the same fate befallen them.

The downfall of Zambia began immediately after the 2012 AFCON. It was however not very important at the moment as the honey phase had not passed. 2018 has however been the lowest point as the U17, U20 and Senior team have all failed to qualify to their respective AFCON tournaments.

The debate among the many soccer loving Zambians unfortunately is who should be blamed for this failure. To some extent yes someone has to pay for this failure it’s unacceptable but what next?

The most important part at this point is to look for solutions. What next after the disaster of failing to make it to two consecutive AFCON tournaments, To make matters worse Zambia was in a group that had Mozambique (A team that had not beaten Chipolopolo until qualifiers for the 2019 AFCON, Home and away) Guinea Bissau (A team that has one AFCON appearance) and Namibia .

Zambia has to go to work immediately to make sure they can return to the top of the African game where they belong.

ZAMBIA NEEDS FOOTBALL IDENTITY

As a country it is important to understand what your strengths are and identify areas where you lacking so that you can work on them. Those who watched Green Buffaloes one nil win over Tunisian side CS Sfaxien would agree that the soldiers wasted alot of chances pumping high balls into the 18 yard area when they played against a team with taller players.

Most Arab countries use aerial balls because of their height advantage, Brazil is about trickery and skill because that’s their strength while Spain plays the short passing game because their players are good on the ball.

Zambians are naturally short and hence playing high balls makes no logical sense unless they face a country with shorter players (Not many of those Around). One thing that’s for sure is that Zambian players are skillful and have pace.

So it makes logical sense to model the game around those two attributes. With the current coach Sven Vandenbroek despite the AFCON qualification failure the team has been playing a passing game with build up starting from the back which is reasonable considering the height of players if ‘route one’ (Pumping the ball forward also known as hit and hope) football was used.

Formations and system will change depending on the opponents but the football identity will remain the same.

JUNIOR COACHES TO BE MADE ASSISTANTS AT SENIOR LEVEL

The whole purpose of junior teams is to prepare players for senior national team. Winning trophies at junior level is a bonus. Now how do you prepare players with an entire different football philosophy at each stage?

The current senior national team coach Sven Vandenbroek brought the issue of build up play starting from the back. During his early days he admitted that some players struggled because that’s not what they are used to at club level.

So if truly junior teams have to develop players for the senior national team, They have to have a single philosophy and play almost the same kind of football as the national team.

What this means is that when young players make the jump to the senior national team they will only need to adjust to pressure and other demands of playing at the senior team and not the kind of football because that’s what they have been playing at junior level. They also have an easy transition because their coach at junior level is there with them guiding them through the process.

GOING BACK TO THE BASICS – SCHOOL FOOTBALL AND IDENTIFYING PLAYERS AT A YOUNG AGE

In Zambia School is regarded as something very important as it almost always guarantees someone better opportunities in Life. This has made alot of parents force their Children to focus more on school than football despite some of them being exceptionally talented.

The Association can come up with some form of agreement with the Ministry of Education to have part time FAZ employed coaches drill the young players at schools. Hold football clinics at Schools to try by all means to identify talented players at a young age to give them enough time to develop.

The Germany FA has over 1,000 part-time DFB coaches, all of whom must hold the Uefa B licence and are expected to scout as well as train the players at the academies around the country. No surprise why Germany is now a force to reckon with in World Football.

Back home Mauritania has taught all of us a big lesson, It’s not where you are that matters but where you want to go and what you willing to do to get there.

Mauritania’s Football Federation (FFRIM) held its first democratic election in 2011, and Ahmed Ould Yahya won. That’s where the story begins.

He has his critics, but even they are silent in the face of the facts. Yahya instituted an ambitious Agenda 2024 move and bulldozed everyone along. ‘Bullboze’ is the word because he has had to whip his opponents in line.

In that time, a new 20,000 seater Olympic Stadium – where they beat South Africa three years later – has been built. An $820,000 youth center, covering 128 sq. miles, has been running since 2012. It currently has a national team for U15s, U17s, U20s and U23s.

Not just that, they also have leagues for U15, U17 and U20 teams nationwide that runs parallel to the Mauritanian Ligue 1. These youth leagues have been partnered by local telecom giants Mauritel, while a humanitarian support deal has been signed with UNICEF ( The Mauritania story is from myjoyonline.com full story by Gary Al-Smith https://www.myjoyonline.com/sports/2018/February-22nd/lowly-mauritania-teaches-ghana-africa-a-football-lesson-with-photos.php)

In 2019 Mauritania will be participating at their first ever AFCON tournament after booking their place with a game to spare alongside the likes of Guinea, Ivory Coast and Algeria.

In Manchester United’s striker Romelu Lukaku’s story “I have got some things to say” he talks of how he was a failing to score for Belgium despite being prolific at Club level when he was between 17 and 19 years old.

Chipolopolo striker Patson Daka who everyone is now so happy with and proud to talk about was insulted not so long ago but today he is one of the best young talents on the continent.

The point is not about Lukaku’s misfiring or the insults Patson was showered with but the fact that players need time to develop and mature. Playing at senior national team level comes with its own pressures like getting used to playing in front of a huge crowd, high level matches etc. A lot is expected from a player but if they are not taught how to handle such situations from a young age players crumble and fell to perform once they get the chance.

If players are exposed to such levels of football at a young age the country will have a big pool of players to choose from with a long life span expected not just after one two years a player starts to decline because they were identified late. This is obviously a long term plan and goes beyond just qualifying to 2021 AFCON and Qatar World Cup 2022.

ROAD MAP

A properly thought through plan needs to be formulated where the expectations and what needs to be done are outlined. Nothing happens by accident in life, Football is no different and it’s not even rocket science, Mauritania is living proof of that.

The Football Association of Zambia can and needs to engage all stake holders to come up with a workable road map towards qualifying to the Qatar 2022 FIFA World Cup which will mean everything from that point onwards will be done to achieve that one goal and the rest will be secondary to that objective, The case of Germany after the embarrassment of finishing bottom of their group at Euro 2000.

For anything to happen implementation has to be executed with perfection otherwise it will just be another failed idea. Everyone has to buy into that idea to make sure it achieves it’s intended purpose. For those who do not get in line they can be whipped in line as long the plan will take Zambian football to the top again.

A DELIBERATE YOUTH POLICY

The Germany Football Association met clubs following Euro 2000 early exit and decided that the development of more technically proficient homegrown players would be in everyone’s best interests.

The football Association of Zambia can also met clubs and they can come up with a deliberate policy to encourage teams to use young players in league matches helping them to gain the much needed exposure and experience at a young age.

FIFA in the bid to encourage its Member Associations to Improve the standards of Youth and Women football, They give them a certain amount for organising a proper youth league and a proper women’s league. FAZ can adopt the same principle and can find a way of motivating clubs to use young players by giving some form of reward to a team for using player (s) below a certain age ( e. g U20) .

This will increase the number of young players available for national team selection with the necessary exposure and experience. This will prolong the lifespan of national team players. Does it not hurt that the best the country got out of Winston Kalengo was just one single good year? (2016) if nothing is done then this will be the order of the day.

Yes the Super League is not a platform to develop players but a stage for developed players. With an incentive teams will be forced to have proper academies that produce well developed quality players in order for them to be ready and be used in the Super League in order to get the reward from the Association.

LIMIT ON FOREIGN PLAYERS IN MATCH DAY SQUAD

The MTN/FAZ Super League has developed in the recent past and has become one of the best leagues on the continent with huge amounts of monies being splashed around.

This has caused a rise in the number of foreign players trekking to Zambia to play for any of the 20 Super League teams, Some are even playing for lower tier sides with Congo being the major contributor of those players.

Just last year, Team Kopala (Buildcon) lined up an all foreign starting line up. Obviously the increase in foreign players has contributed to the development of the league but what’s the incense of having a developed league when your national team can’t benefit and keeps coming up short at major tournaments.

In China after the influx of foreign players they came up with a limit to how many (5) can be in a match day squad of one team because they want the league to develop but not at the expense of sidelining their local talent.

Zambian players need to be given priority as the country looks to have a balanced development between the league and the national team but of course they also need to work extra hard. Some will argue that players need to earn their places, Yes of course but foreign players will also need to be of the top quality. Some foreign players in the league are very average and add no significant value to the league and some coaches are forced to play them all because of the huge monies those players get or the huge figure the club paid for their services.

For Zambia to reclaim its spot at the high table of African football it will take the effort of every stakeholder and working together. Zambian Football has alot of potential to grow but alot of work needs to be done between then and now.