Zambia National Team assistant coach Moses Sichone described Thursday evening as a ‘tough evening’ following Zambia’s shock one nil loss to Malawi in the opening game of the 2023 COSAFA Championship.
The defending Champions suffered a surprise 1-0 loss to neighbours Malawi thanks to a 16th minute Aaron Katebe own goal.
Sichone says the team just need to work on mistakes they made in the game against the Flames on Thursday at the King Zwelithini Stadium in Durban.
The former Nchanga Rangers defender believes his team has a lot of young players that is why they lost the match as they are still gaining experience.
“It’s a tough evening for us, we wanted to start the tournament on a good note but unfortunately we lost the game,” he said.
“We just need to work on the mistakes that we made today (Thursday). I have been saying we have got a lot of young players who are trying to gain a bit of experience and some of them did not do well.”
“We need to encourage the boys. We cannot always win games… Some [of the players] are still young and this is a way we have to build them up,” he added.
Sichone wants to immediately put the disappointing loss to Malawi behind him and focus on the next game.
“The first games are always important, when you win the first game you get the confidence in the tournament.”
“The result didn’t go as planned, we just have to forget about this game and focus on the next game,” he added.
Zambia is in Group B and next they face Comoros on Sunday before concluding their group fixtures with a tie against Seychelles on Tuesday.
There was handball in the build up to that German goal. Now 3-2. Beautiful.
Useless these so called team “B” our future is doomed as a footballing nation. Not with this kind of managing / coaching.