Zambia Under-17 National Team Coach Osward Mutapa described the Junior Chipolopolo’s 3-2 win over Malawi in yesterday’s final Group A Match at the Ongoing 2019 COSAFA U17 Men’s Championship as tough but was happy with the result.
Speaking in a post-match interview Mutapa said he was impressed with the team’s performance despite making wholesale changes to his starting line up resting 6 of his charges who played in the previous match against South Africa and managed to record their 3rd win of the tournament and qualified to the semi-finals with a 100% winning record.
“It was a great result for us it wasn’t easy. We won despite making 6 changes but I am happy that every boy was given an opportunity to have a feel of the tournament. Playing against the hosts we told them it was going to be tough but I am happy we recorded a maximum of 3 points and the boys really played their Lungs out and we are happy that they did well,” he said.
The win by the Junior Chipolopolo booked them a place in the semi-finals and will be locking horns with Angola who are the defending Champions but Mutapa is not worried about this fixture despite not knowing much about his opponents, he indicated that he will use the team’s strongest points to come out tops from that match.
“We don’t know much about Angola but we will take it as it comes since it’s a tournament we will prepare by looking at our strongest points and see if they can help us win the semi-final,” he said.
Goals from Rickson Ng’ambi, Moses Mulenga and Peter Chikola were enough to hand the Coach Mutapa drilled side an emphatic 3-2 victory over the Junior Flames who found the back of the net through Frank Mahowa and Chikumbuso Salima.
Meanwhile, Angola qualified as Group B Runners-up on 6 points after silencing Comoros 3-nil in their last group game while Mozambique edged Lesotho 4-1 and topped Group B on 7 points to set up a mouthwatering Semi-final date with Eswatini who held South Africa 1-1 to come out as group A Runners-up.
Zambia and Angola will renew their rivalry tomorrow at 14:30hrs in the second of the two semi-final games to fight for a spot in the final while Mozambique will lock horns with Eswatini at midday with kick-off at 11:00hrs in the first match.
Friday’s Fixtures – 18th October 2019.
Semi-final 1.
11:00hrs – Mozambique vs Eswatini
Semi-final 2.
14:30hrs – Zambia vs Angola
Note that Both matches will be played at Mpira Stadium.
