Guest article: State of Emergency

I am a fan who has watched the Zambian National team since they were called KK11 in 1991. I am writing to express my deep concern about events taking place in the national team today.

Zambia today is blessed with a wealth of talent of the highest quality, a depth of explosive and dynamic players. Quality players has not been an issue going back 5 years to integration of the 2017 AFCON U-20 champions. In this time however  we only managed one AFCON qualification at three attempts, two more failed WC qualifications, not even close. We are on our fourth foreign coach with stints from the local coaches in between.

There have been too few good times in the national team, our best spell has come in the recent AFCON 2024 qualifiers combined with the early WC 2026 qualifiers.

 These stronger performances came off the back of 2022 WC qualifiers under local coach Beston Chambeshi which had seen a string of highly unfortunate events, first the forced early career retirement of Zambia’s captain and talismanic player Enock Mwepu followed by poor refereeing decisions, injuries and red cards to key players at key moments. 

Spurred by these injustices the team’s players directed their focus toward a series of composed and determined performances in the aforementioned matches. This is attributed as the main cause of recent success, not at all a real product of the then newly appointed high profile coach Avram Grant.

Coach Avram Grant’s biggest contribution to the national team has been the reintroduction of veteran central defender Stophira Sunzu. I have no problem with this inclusion but my concerns are raised higher that Grant starts Sunzu in every match instead of him providing experience, leadership and options from bench as many veterans would, Sunzu’s presence in the starting eleven denies the development and attainment of younger players in this position, Sunzu will retire sooner than later and in this time we squander future proofing and focused development of the team. 

Development of the team is key to everything. It is quite simply the central reason Zambia looks to foreign coaches. Enock Mwepu was our finest player, he was the man in the middle of the pitch who would have conducted all our play in the tradition of legendary heroes Kalusha Bwalya and Christopher Katongo, there is no understating how big his loss was. 

Enock’s replacement looked to come in the form of local based Kelvin Kampamba starting two matches in Enock’s absence. At the recently exited AFCON 2024 Grant then started newcomer Kelvin Kapumbu in two matches. There is no player who can replace Enock, however one has to wonder why in Grant’s time he has not tried to bring consistency and structure to the main engine room of Zambia’s play. 

There has been no improvement in the teams ability to play possession and controlling football that one can see. While quick forward balls, a few passages of play, and moments of individual brilliance highlight Grant and Zambia’s best recent form, there is again painfully no evidence of Zambia’s ability to control a football match is arriving soon. 

This lack of direction is clear in last 4 nightmare matches, our first WC qualifier loss to underdogs Niger, one loss to Morocco and two barely snatched draws against lower ranked teams at AFCON. These were not one off bad performances and i am not judging individual mistakes made by players but the whole system of play. 

The writing is now firmly on the wall, those matches were extremely poor showings for Zambian football at a time Zambia should have been brimming with confidence and demonstrating its intention and all that it’s invested thus far. It is hard to express just how systematically bad we were offensively and defensively. 

This couldn’t come at a worst time as Zambia continues it’s WC qualifying campaign in June. There is no escaping the failures of our coach to prepare, offensively, defensively, all proved very painful viewing. Throughout the tenure of FAZ President Andrew Kamanga hiring of foreign coaches has notorious been long drawn out affairs and we are in a quandary. 

While AFCON will see the back of many head coaches Kamaga will view sacking head coach Grant as jeopardising Zambia’s so far promising WC campaign. However, it’s evident there is no greater jeopardy at this moment than maintaining Avram Grant. Kamanga’s time in charge has not brought even the basic on field success one would expect. His final national team legacy is being written as we speak and it needs work.

 I hope there is a coach who will rescue Zambia at this juncture, because all signs point that it will not be Avram Grant.

I was critical of Grant at his appointment but I don’t seek vindication. The criteria for a national coach is and will always be the same. 

One: technical/tactical, coach has to have ball dominant, predominantly offensive desire to play to suits Zambia’s own, Italians don’t play like this, Spanish do.Technical knowledge has to be first rate because he needs to impart this to players who come from a place where technical learning is limited. He will not find ready made players he will have to build and drill them himself. 

Second: Youth, the energy to travel across Zambia, hold training camps, stand and scream instructions across the pitch for hours, the hunger to achieve and prove oneself. 

Third: vision/awareness, someone who can see the destination and the journey, awareness of history and culture which means respect.

A coach who meets this criteria won’t necessarily come to us, we may have to seek them out and offer them the proposition. A marriage of two common goals to write history. Though we have more players playing higher level football in Zambia than ever before we will fail them every time if we cannot provide for them this basis of a well placed coach. 

The players/team need development, a consistent forward progression that will see them all build the resilience, methods, understanding and partnerships needed to compete at ever higher levels of international football. This is what a coach is for, this is what administration is for.

Zambia’s current standard of results and ever diminishing level of play cannot be accepted. Something needs to be done urgently. Zambia’s historic dream of debuting in WC remains unfulfilled.

I am not in Andrew Kamaga’s position to make the difficult decision to stick with Grant or change another. If I were speaking to as many visiting and available coaches attending Ivory Coast’s AFCON 2024 to investigate and assess emergency options, I would speak to the players to include their view in consideration. Make no mistake Zambia’s football is in a state of emergency.

By Kayne Li  AKA Seen From Afar