NAPSA Stars are one foot into the group stage of the CAF Confederations Cup after a late strike from Daniel Adoko gave the pensioners an advantage in the first leg on Sunday away in Kenya.
The team arrived back in Zambia on Monday morning and Fathi was quick to heap praise on his players upon arrival at the Kenneth Kaunda international airport.
“Thank God for this win and we have worked very hard for it, it’s not about the club it’s about the nation and we managed to get what we planned for with the help of God, so we appreciate the effort from the players,” he said.
“The game plan, we should not be affected by any negative words around the team there is no pressure. Me, I never put myself under pressure I did not put my players under pressure I have a game plan and I enforce it we play around the clock 90minutes we start locking the game in midfield and we know if we manage to pass the first half 0-0 second half we know there are going to pressure high and they will try to force a goal and we have to be strong so for 30 minutes we managed, the last 15minutes we keep force and this is where we got our chance and if you look at the same scenario in Mozambique even after we allowed the goal we didn’t open up to answer back we kept ourselves until the tempers became high for the other side this is where we took our goal,” he added
The Pensioners have struggled with injuries but now most of the players are back and much to the excitement of the Egyptian-born gaffer.
“Most of my injured players and the key players there are back we have Luka BANDA in the Backline we have also Daniel Silavwe back in the midfield Mavugo also back in the midfield we have Austin Banda back in the midfield so you can see around 5 to 6 players from the starting 11 are back so we are back to our performance, its the only thing that affected our performance not having total players and the games coming every 3 days this has really affected us but so far so good even about the league, the way I have seen the league it’s so wide open we are 11 points between us and number one and we have one game in hand and there are 18games for us to go so it’s open for everyone it’s not yet over if somebody said it’s over I will get his name so that we remind each other in June who’s number 1, who’s been relegated cause football its mathematics and if you don’t understand mathematics better you don’t talk about football,” he said.
“With us, the supporters are fantastic, behind the team even if there are not traveling the spirit is with the team and we are a well-organized club there is unity between the supporters, the management, the players so we take this unity and we enter with it in Sunday’s game and we have a plan and what we need we need to finish the Job on Sunday I can’t talk more about the game plan and what we are going to do I prefer people to watch the game,” he added
Fathi has set his targets on making history by winning on Sunday to qualify to the group stage on the first try.
“I have had this team for 2 and half years they understand my philosophy we are playing a tactical game and we are playing zone game so if you set your cards right on tactics you win the game and its history for Zambia cause this is the first team in Africa to qualify to Continental for this first time and reach the group stage on the first attempt so its history for the club its history for Zambia and no one can take it from us,” he said.
“We are going to work hard in the super league, I think the last game we played in the league we won, beating Nkwazi and we are very focused and it’s just a matter of the pressure was too high with a lot of injuries and now we are almost full house so we balance ourselves in the league, it won’t be a big issue we need to represent Zambia again in 2021.”
