With Beston Chambeshi’s three months stint as Chipolopolo coach coming to an end, Football expert and pundit Musonda ‘Ba Muzo’ Chibulu offers his views on whether Zambia should hire a local or foreign coach.
Below are ‘Ba Muzo’s views…
The record of local coaches at the helm of the Chipolopolo speaks for itself.
All the top coaches have been tried. They are not in the same mound as the late Sameul “Zoom” Ndhlovu, Godfrey Ucar Chitalu, Moses Simwala or Ben Bamfuchile at present.
I have head of calls for a consortium of local coaches to manage the Chipolopolo.
We know local coaches have challenges with working with each each.
The trend for foreign coaches is not limited to Zambia. What am saying has nothing to do with lack of belief in the local coaches.
I believe with just a bit of development, our coaches have potential to manage at this level.
But consider the trend at the top performing national teams in Africa.
90 percent of them are not managed by local coaches.
Aside from Ndhlovu , (Olympics quarter-finals, Afcon third) here in Zambia, our best moments have been achieved by foreign coaches.
Ante Buselic (1974 Afcon final), Ian Potterfield (1994 Afcon final), Roald Poulsen (1996 Afcon third) and the ultimate Herve Renard (Africa Cup champions 2012).
Aside from Ndhlovu what’s the record of local coaches at the Africa Cup? Janza needed the help of a Dutchman called Nico Labohm to qualify to the Africa Cup and we finished behind Cape Verde, have we forgotten?
Beston Chambeshi did incredibly well in winning the Under-20 Africa Cup and reaching the Under-20 World Cup last 8 for the first time.
When it mattered the most he came short.
Saying we need a little bit of help from outside is not a sign of weakness.
It’s a sign of maturity acknowledging and understanding our challenges and limitations.
England who last won the World Cup in 1966 in the wake of recent failures had an Italian and a Swiss in charge before finally settling on Englishman Gareth Southgate.
It takes a bit of time to completely say a country can put 100% trust in local coaches.
Let us see their performance at club level. If a coach is in TAKATAKA mode at club level or gets a team relegated, how can he be trusted to manage the national team?
Let our local coaches prove themselves in the local league and continental club competitions and then we can see they are ready to step up.
Also they must learn to cooperate with each in national causes not competing and thinking they know it all and no other coach can advise.
Doesn’t need a lecture from Oxford University to analyse for us if we need a local coach or not . This issue is undebatable . NO LOCAL COACH CAN COACH CHIPOLOPOLO
Personally, foreign or local shouldn’t matter. Just hire someone who can deliver and allow for patience. The biggest fault this FAZ has made so far is the timing of their hires. They hire coaches after qualifiers have already started or when there is little to no time to prep the team. So all these guys have really not had a genuine opportunity to do the job properly.
No local coach is fit to ciach Chipolopolo as at now. They need to go to school and upgrade. They need to learn modern football coz that is whatbis lacking in them. That’s the reason why our local league keeps going backwards.