Experience is a great teacher and it comes at a huge cost especially if it’s your first time on any adventure.
Football goes hand in hand with experience as it is a continuous learning process and most times it requires well-oriented, acquainted, and exposed players who have better knowledge of the game.
Young Green Eagles of Kafue, a Zambia National service (ZNS) sponsored outfit fondly called ‘Tonka Tusike’ are debutants in the Zambia Super League after they finished in the top four (4) brackets of the national league last season, a second-tier FAZ organized league.
Their debut season in the super league has been a hit and snag, it has been a lukewarm yet overwhelming season for the newly-promoted side who are in the thick of things to see it to it that they remain in the super league.
After playing twenty-one games with thirteen more to go, they find themselves in 14th position one place above the relegation zone. They have picked four wins, ten draws, and seven losses giving them a total of 22 points.
Despite being one place above relegation waters, they face a daunting task from regular campaigners and CAF confederation cup group stage makers in the name of Napsa stars and Nkana who occupy 15th and 16th position in that manner respectively with the former having three games in hand and the latter has four with only a point and two separating them from safety.
The ZamFoot Crew caught up with former Zambia international who now is the assistant coach for the Young Green Eagles side, Kebby Hachipuka to discuss the teams’ prospects.
As things stand, Young Green Eagles can survive the relegation scare only if they conjure a spirited fight till the end of the season. The debutant team’s goal is always to survive relegation first season then come back strong the following season.
“Being the debutant in the elite league, our mission is to stay in the league, then the second season is to stabilize and the third season we can fight for the league’s top spot. Am very confident that we are going to survive relegation because the last four games before the international break are giving me confidence as we have upped our game, we drew with Power Dynamos and Lusaka Dynamos then we won against Forest Rangers and Napsa Stars,” Kebby Hachipuka told the ZamFoot Crew in an exclusive interview.
“Yes two teams behind us have some games in hand and that doesn’t scare us or give them a guarantee that they will leapfrog us, the games in hands are theirs and it’s not automatically that they will them.”
Young Green Eagles have had difficulties in finding the back of the net as they rank third in the league with an unimpressive goal scoring haul only above Lumwana Radiants and Kitwe united as they have scored 13 times giving them an average of one goal every two games but things have begun to improve as they now averaging a goal almost in each match since the start of the second round.
“Change of mindset was the major problem with the team, secondly final third was a problem because the team was able to create scoring chances but putting the ball behind the net was a problem and which the technical bench has been working on it from the time to time and some change has been seen as the team is now able to even score three in a single game,” Hachipuka said.
Young Green Eagles will be hoping to resume from where they left off before the international break to keep survival hopes alive.
The Tonka Tusike Boys will host Lumwana Radiants on Saturday at the Khosa Stadium in Kafue
