Zambia National team head coach Milutin ‘Micho’ Sredojevic believes his team has no right to let down the Millions of Zambians who be backing them tomorrow be it from home when they take on Algeria in a 2021 AFCON qualifier.
The Serbian gaffer is confident that playing the Desert Foxes should be motivation to his players to work hard and carry the day tomorrow.
“We have in mind that we were almost clinically down in these qualifiers but with the win over Botswana, we revived our hopes. We have seen from local players what they are capable of in four competitive matches at CHAN and friendly matches,” Micho told the ZamFoot Crew during a pre-match press conference on Wednesday at the National Heroes Stadium.
“These qualifiers are very important to us because we are representing millions of Zambians and when you are representing millions and carrying dreams of millions you have no right to let down people, you want to make them happy.”
” We have players who are playing in the CAF Champions league, South Africa, and Europe all doing their best. We are here in front of the big one, I believe there is no bigger motivation than playing reigning African Champions. We need to stretch ourselves to all human and sporting limits. We know what it takes,” he added.
With just three points to their name after four rounds of matches, The Copper Bullets are not inspiring a lot of hope in the fans but Micho is confident tomorrow they change the hearts of the ‘doubting Thomases’ and show their clear ambition.
“We know that many people have doubts but without talking too much we want to work hard against Algeria and put away all those doubts by showing that we have clear ambition and intentions,” he said.
“We want to keep ourselves intact and mathematically in contention so that the last match in Harare decides but we have no right to think beyond the match tomorrow.”
” We believe in the work we have done since we started camp on Monday last week. In a very short period, we will succeed in making our players tactically aware and mentally strong. We have done so much we believe our players are physically fit to outrun and be tactically effective. We believe in the players we have and the work we have done is good enough to convince God to help us get the best possible result,” he added.
Zambia will host Algeria at the National Heroes Stadium tomorrow at 21:00 CAT. The game will be live on the National Broadcaster, ZNBC.
The Copper Bullets will wrap up the qualifiers with an away fixture against Zimbabwe on Monday next week.
We need to win