Football Association of Zambia (FAZ) President Andrew Kamanga believes the Zambia national soccer team is ready for the sixth edition of The CAF African Nations Championship ( CHAN ) tournament.
Zambia’s best finish at the tournament was third place at the inaugural tournament in 2009 while the last two appearances have seen Zambia fail to go past the quarter-final stage. Kamanga now wants to see Chipolopolo take one step further than their last two-quarter final exits.
“I think the team has been out since 29th of December they came in initially for a four-nation tournament they played three games, lost one, won one and drew one as part of the preparation and then last week they played against Libya they drew 1-1 and our idea was that we should give the team enough preparation as they come into the tournament so I think were we are today the tournament has started so we expect that the team is now, ready and they will be able to do well initially go out of the group stages and get to the quarter-final. Last time around in 2018 we came out in the quarter-final, we expect that this time around they will be an improvement and go beyond the quarter-final,” he said.
“What is also important is that this tournament is coming at a very critical point that even for the players it’s an opportunity for them to showcase there skills those who will be fortunate may just get there professional career going cause we have got a lot of scouts who are monitoring the players in the tournament and the international transfer window is still open until end of January so those who will do well have an opportunity to go into professional football,but most of all as a executive we have made sure that the team which is participating here is going to be critical because we have got other engagement beyond this tournament as you know in March we are back with the AFCON qualifies we play Algeria at home and Zimbabwe away and after that in june we have got the world cup qualifies starting so for the players,its an opportunity that they should be part of this team,be part of the Africa cup qualifies team and be part of the world cup to.so in terms of motivation and progression there is enough for them to fight for.”
Kamanga was quick to assure the safety of the national team amid reports of unrest in the region where the team is based.
“I think what is important for instance is that we have got four teams here in this region, Zambia, Namibia, Tanzania, and Guinea, and clearly the authorities here and the organizers for the tournament would not love to have any incidence here affecting any of those four teams, so you can see the measures are high which have been taken and I think this is why that risk has been mitigated by the level of security that we have seen and from that perspective its clear that there is a lot that has gone on and we hope that the tournament will go on incident-free and ultimate football will win,” he said.
Zambia is in Group D alongside Guinea, Namibia, and Tanzania with the Chipolopolo stationed in Buea.
Note: All games are being beamed live on Top Star.
