Live – USA 3-0 Zambia; Pauline Zulu sent off

BRUCE MWAPE get out of here!

FAZ swallow tour pride go hunt down the Ghanian coach that is the solution to this mediocrity. A coach can’t wholey relly on individual brilliance from the players.

USA were beatable but Zambia women team put up a very unplanned and uncoordinated display! The defence was not only porous but central defenders were non committal to the cause, hence on all the 3 goals coming within short spell of time. Main culprit was the sent off Pauline Zulu! All 3 goals came up because Pauline Zulu failed to properly handle the situations on Zambia’s right defensive flank! Though Zambia was playing 4-2-4 formation on paper, it turned out to be 9-0-1 by mid way through the first half, after Zulu’s send off, it became 8-0-1, with Barbra Banda as lone striker. Also Barbra and Kundananji as usual were selfish on the few chances they had to score, in the second half, as they didn’t want to pass to each other. The coaches should serious talk to the strikers on the need of not being selfish! Grace Chanda, Hellen Chanda, Mupopo, Prisca Chilufya were below par! Finally, ba Bruce should encourage the passing game, carpet football. I think he has now learnt a lot from other more experienced teams. Problem with Zambian players is that they are not intelligent enough to play carpet football, but they can be forced to from training sessions. To succeed in playing carpet football, players have to be relaxed and tricky. But as we saw in Thursday’s game , Zambian players were not relaxed, as result they kept on passing balls to USA players! How is it possible that a defender kicking the ball forward kicks a short weak one to opposition striker just outside the goal area, instead of kicking high enough beyond the centre line! The players need a lot of psyching before the next game! Zambia still have a chance if they can beat Australia and draw against Germany! But Grace Chanda, Mupopo, Hellen Chanda, Prica Chilufya should not start!

Personal Reflection:
It’s surprising that Zambia, while having a strong player pool, couldn’t defeat a formidable opponent like the USA. I can confidently attribute this to:
1. A lack of a clear tactical approach to the game.
2. Inadequate team selection (There are many players in the Zambia women’s league who can play in many departments). For example, for this game, we required solid defensive midfielders rather than creative midfielders, and we needed to use our quick players Barbra Banda, Racheal Kundananji, Kabange Mupopo, and Racheal Nachula (as a super sub) to our advantage.
3. According to my observations, the girls were instructed to develop a woman-to-woman marking system, which resulted in the USA exposing our spaces.
4. Based on my observations, there were no defensive midfielders to assist in narrowing the gaps in the center of the field. As a result, limit the USWNT’s creative freedom.
5. I believe our coaching and technical crew showed too much respect to the USWNT. This was particularly evident in our players’ body language.
I feel that if we want to see our team progress, we must guarantee that the coaching and technical teams focus on passing skills, as it is clear that the majority of our ladies have terrible passing abilities. Our ladies should be psyched not to show too much respect to our opponents. Most of our girls are quite skilled, but they lack confidence, which contributes to their subpar performance. Our ladies should be encouraged to mimic the confidence of Banyana Banyana, Nigeria, and Cameroon. The subconscious fear of “BIG” names is a big cause to the majority of our losses for both the men’s and women’s teams.