Chipolopolo Boys defender Aime Mabika will be looking to quickly shake off the injury he sustained over the weekend ahead of Saturday’s trip to Charlotte.
Mabika suffered a muscle injury 19 minutes into Inter-Miami’s 2-0 loss against New England Revolution at the Gillette Stadium in Foxborough.
Mabika’s injury forced Phil Neville to burn two of his substitutions inside the opening 20 minutes with in-form Leo Campana having been withdrawn seven minutes earlier also due to injury.
“Leo is getting a lot of the praise, and rightfully so, Aime’s been really good the last four games as well,” Neville told MLS soccer.com.
“I think what you saw tonight was an accumulation of playing three out of the last four games on turf. We’ve got another game on the turf next week, and we lost two players, maybe three or four looking at some of the players in the dressing room now.”
Now the key for Mabika is to recover, from injury with a trip to Charlotte FC coming this Saturday.
Chipolopolo boss Aljosa Asanovic will also hope his injury is not that serious with the Ivory Coast 2023 African Cup of Nations qualifiers set to start this month end.
The 2012 African Champions will start their campaign with an away fixture against the 2015 Champions, Ivory Coast on May 30th.
Zambia will then host Comoros on June 14 before a back-to-back engagement with Lesotho at home on September 19 and in Maseru eight days later.
The Enock Mwepu captained side will then host Ivory Coast on March 20th, 2023 before wrapping up their campaign away in Moroni with a date against Comoros on March 28th.
