The future of Zambian training methodology
By Mutale Kambatizee Mbebeta
Street football has produced some of the greatest footballers of all time .From the streets of Tres Coracoes States of Minas Gerais in Brazil to the mining town of Mufulira, we have seen the likes of Pele ,Neymar ,Ronaldinho,Jay Jay Ococha and Kalusha Bwalya emerge from the streets and mesmerise world football with skill ,flair and high technical proficiency .
What is it about street football that creates these amazingly technically gifted players ?
The answer is simple, Environment and Anatomy to decision making .The players in the streets fall in love with the game at a very young age and practice their craft for countless hours.
Football in the streets doesn’t have a specific pitch size, because the game takes place anywhere at any time in different environments which force the players to constantly adjust their decision making and technical execution on football actions .
It is there that the best players are produced because their technical execution is not separate from their decision making .The players in the streets learn how to explore different technical actions and are learning through guided discovery which is the best form of learning in football.
According to the German school of differential learning which has been used by top Coaches like Thomas Tuchel and other scholars of the game, Adjusting the game environment through different constraints is what improves players technically and turns them into better problem solvers because they are constantly trying to solve problems in the environment.
In places like Brazil, Zambia and others, the quality of pitches and environment is not of high quality, but they still produce technical players because subconsciously the players are adjusting and problem solving every time according to the environment.
The biggest lie we have been told in modern day football is that technical players are produced by having quality pitches. Quality pitches are a must and we ought to heavily and deliberately invest in sporting facilities, but in terms of producing technical players it plays a small part and we can see from history that the most technically efficient players played on the streets.
Environment / Culture is an important factor in producing top players and it has evidently shown how Brazil has produced flair and skillful players. Additionally, Argentina has produced resilient, aggressive small technicians who play small passing football in close proximity and Spain with their positional play football.
To produce that kind of footballers it is about the environment and culture more than anything to do with the development of training methodology.
To produce this kind of unique football takes a level of understanding the culture and developing a methodology by taking principles of street football to the academies.
Have we taken principles of Chimpombwa football to the academies ?or have we just adopted other cultural principles and brought them to our football.
The main idea behind academies was to gather the best talents from street football at a young age and give them a proper pathway while educating them on professionalism.
An academy is an education system that educates the players on more than just football .
You have to ask yourself why the best teams in Europe scout players at the age of 10 and even sign some of them at 15.
These kids have already built a solid technical base off the streets or off academies that have brought street football to the academies with proper training methodologies.
How many academies and teams in the country have the right methodology and proper coaching personnel ? And with the passion of Chimpombwa football slowly dying we might never produce another Kalusha Bwalya again.
The best players we have produced as a nation all went through the Chimpombwa phase and even World super stars like Babra Banda and Rachel Kundananji were picked from playing Chimpombwa.
The environment ,the rules like 5 change goal and 10 knock out have produced the best goal poachers like Godfrey Ucar Chitalu . Chimpombwa knock out tournaments made the very best of competitors as you competed against other teams in the streets .
Former ZESCO United striker Winston Kalengo talks about how he became a great finisher because of exploring different finishing techniques.
“ In the streets ,you have the freedom to explore different techniques that you can’t explore in a structured environment and you learn how to be resilient too,” he said.
The main principles should be to transfer Chimpombwa football with its nature of guided discovery learning to the Academies and produce our own training methodology that is going to produce world class players by 2035 ,that is our reality and the future of Zambian football .
THE FUTURE OF ZAMBIAN TRAINING METHODOLOGY
The future of Zambian football lies in improving our training methodology, by training proper grassroots coaches, investing in technical centres that can track player progress and following the proper stages of football development which start as early as 7 years .
PLAYER DEVELOPMENT STAGES ARE AS FOLLOWS
Stage 1
7-12 years (3v3)
The most vital stage and the building blocks of every footballer in stage one is the technical base and building the love for the ball. Building the love for the ball is what brings about ball mastery.
Training must always be in 3v3 format so that the players constantly have a relationship with the ball and relate with other teammates to create combinations and third man plays .
Stage 2 (5v5)
12-16
Developing their physical aspect while improving the technical base coupled with a decision making element. It is here where games should not be more than 5v5 in a small space.
With the players repeatedly working with team Mates and understanding principles of what makes a team .The lines of the game are developed at this stage as you have mini formations such as 2-3 with the players being arranged in two lines such as defensive and attacking line.
2-1-2 with all three lines involved defensive , midfield and attacking lines .Players start to understand the game at this stage. It’s important to teach some principles here .
Stage 3 (11v11)
16-19
Deepening their mental resilience and understanding of the game.
It is here where the players start to understand more of the game because of brain plasticity. It is here where players build proper tactical and technical habits . The introduction of 11v11 on a bigger standard pitch is supposed to be done at this stage .
Stage 4 (The complete player)
19-22
Tactically understanding, flexibility , Motivation and Consistency.
Last stage in player development is the tactical understanding of the game. Being flexible enough to play in many tactical systems and having a personal motivation to be the best.
Players build consistency by being motivated to learn and using different mental attributes to push themselves to a stage where they can dominate the sport .
ADVANCING TRAINING METHODOLOGY
Over the years ,football methodology has advanced massively with the use of modern day scientific methods and research . Teams are searching for footballing efficiency which has led to the evolution of training methodology.
Years back it was analytical ,global and combined training methodology that was effective, but the introduction of tactical periodization by Vitor Frade and football periodization by Raymond Verheijen have totally revolutionized how we see and train football because the search for efficiency has led to teams being more tactical than ever .
Not through the repetition of passes or any football action, but through the repetition of situations which contextualise each pass in a game setting.
A football match is not a series of separate reoccurring individual movements, therefore why would you train this way? Analytical training separated elements of football training ,Physical , technical ,mental and tactical were trained separately and combined was about combining two elements when training, but tactical and football periodization trains all these elements together day by day to improve the players decision making.
The best teams are the teams that think the same at every given game moment and to train the players is to train their decision more than anything.
Marcelo Bielsa sums up modern day methodology in this way; Mechanizing play is about recreating the situation that players will be in over and over again, with each situation revealing various cues and therefore action scripts to be employed. In repeating the action scripts over and over, the player would eventually be able to execute these actions with intuition and feel comfortable in a situation that would otherwise feel uncomfortable with great pressures on the player…. functional situations bread confidence •Two training methods for performing under pressure:
•train under pressure and recreate many of the same sensory experiences the player may come under during performance
•‘Quiet-Eye Training’: that of breaking the action script into procedures or key checkpoints or cues so that the player can move away from the subconsciously controlled decision making part of his brain and towards a rational mindset that focuses on the process of the action rather than its end product.
TECHNICAL CENTERS IN EVERY PROVINCE TO TRACK PLAYER DEVELOPMENT
Recently the U 17 National team has qualified for the World Cup with some impressive displays and some good young players, but the major problem we have had in recent years is the transition of players from junior national teams to the senior national team.
We have produced some of the best Junior national teams, but our national team has failed to qualify and even get out of the group stage at AFCON because we have not tracked the process of our junior players after these tournaments.
It’s the reason why technical centres in every province are improving because first of all ,you train the players in the national methodology from time to time and track the player progress by having provincial camps from time to time.
We can get examples from England and France who have technical centres that have produced the likes of Kylian Mbappe and Phil Foden.
Technical centres are important because :
– You track player progress
– You get to train the players with quality coaches who are in attached to the National team set up
– It is a major motivation for the players because there is a proper pathway to the national team .
COACH EDUCATION
To produce the best players requires proper nurturing and good coach education.
Grassroot coaches must be given proper education and skills in order to educate and handle young players .To give them the right training and let the players explore their creativity.
Standardized coach training is not the way forward because each stage and level in player development requires different methods with the same principles .
Hence grassroot coaching must have its own special course that is tailored to our national philosophy .
Zambia’s footballing identity is shaped by street football, especially using Chimpombwa—makeshift balls from plastic bags. This fosters creativity, adaptability, and strong ball control. The Chipolopolo team blends technical skill with physicality, favoring a direct, attacking style with quick passes. Rooted in community passion, it reflects resilience and flair from playing in tough conditions. That is our identity and we must improve it by applying the right methodology .
The future starts now .
Good show