Zambia Women’s National team captain Barbra Banda has played down injury concerns after she limped off in Thursday’s win over Namibia.
The China based forward was replaced by Enelesi Phiri in the 77th minute after going down following a challenge on the wing but it seems the injury was not serious.
The ZamFoot Crew understands that Banda just felt a little pain in her calf and the Copper Queens medical decided not to risk it hence signaling her withdrawal to the technical bench.
Banda has also expressed happiness with her return to the Copper Queens set up having missed the 2022 Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco.
“It’s a great feeling to be back in the national team. I’m so happy and excited. I want to thank my teammates for the player of the match because it’s teamwork and on my own I can’t do it,” she said.
“When you are a striker you have to be creative and know your movements and when you have chances you have to utilize them. When you know how to position yourself as a striker everything will be easy for you and go well.”
“Yeah, I am very much okay, I will be back. It was just a small pain, We still have a number of games to go so they decided to give a little rest to this one,” she added.
Banda says the team will work on the mistakes they made in the game when they start their preparations for the next game.
“The first game is always important and we wanted to get three points. We played well but not perfect. We still have to go back to our drawing board and work on the errors we made. I am sure the coach saw the mistakes we made so we will work on them as we prepare,” she said.
“Being a player of the match well is not easy. That’s why I am dedicating this win to the team because on my own I can’t do it. As a striker, my target is to score many goals to help my team.”
Banda netted either side of halftime to guide the Copper Queens to a 2-0 win over Namibia on Thursday.
Zambia will return to the pitch on Sunday when take on Lesotho who recorded a 3-0 win over Eswatini thanks to a hat-trick by captain Boitumelo Rabale.
