Zambia Under-20 begin their campaign at the CAF U20 African Cup of Nations on Tuesday night in Alexandria, Egypt.
The Junior Chipolopolo take on Benin in a Group C tie with kickoff at 19h00 CAT.
While Chisi Mbewe’s fledglings will be busy on the pitch battling against the West Africans, there will be interest in the stands from some of the World’s best scouts, technical directors and agents.
Portuguese based scout/agent Graham Herydorn and his contingent [about 20 scouts] are already in Egypt.
Graham started brokering deals for Zambian players in 2007 having watched George Lwandamina’s coached under-20 battle it out against Luis Suarez, Edson Cavani and Gerard Pique in his native Canada.
Under his company Ramp management, they managed to secure Emmanuel Mayuka and Roder Kola trials at Sporting Lisbon and Real Madrid.
They were also behind Fwayo Tembo and William Njobvu’s trials at Real Madrid and Rennes respectively.
He then secured Rainford Kalaba and Emmanuel Mbola deals at Braga and Porto. He also had Signs Chibambo and Bruce Musakanya [Porto] attend trials in Portugal.
More recently, he almost took Joseph Sabobo Banda to Porto 12 months ago.
He is keeping eye on Nicholas Zulu and Benjamin Mukuka from Sporting Lusaka.
In 2017 at the CAF U20 African Cup of Nations in Lusaka, he led a team consisting of scouts from Lille, Turkey, England and Portugal.
Other scouts from Olympique Marseille, Bastia, Seville, Ajax, PSV and Cercle Bruggle have been spotted in Alexandria.
Nir Karin, who has over 7 players signed to him is in Isreal while Freddie Kanoute is not yet in North Africa.
Kanoute has Peter Chikola and Mathews Banda under 12 management while the likes of Kings Mutandwa, Chipyoka Songa and Dominic Kanda have been signed by Karin Football Agency.
Serious business..lets hope the boys will perform well..