Zambia National Team head coach Avram Grant says the team will approach every game with the mentality of winning each and every time.
The Israeli gaffer knows the team can not win every time but says he is working on a mentality of having the players put in a lot of effort and passion every time they are on the pitch.
Grant also hinted on the uncertainty surrounding the status of USA based defender Aime Mabika despite the Minister of Sport Elvis Nkandu having made a statement that he was cleared a few days ago.
Grant was speaking after Tuesday’s afternoon training session at the National Heroes Stadium.
“We have three days of sessions with local players. I saw many games in the league and this is the squad that I think is good but I want to see them myself in training,” he said.
“All my life I wanted to win. My target here is to try to win all the games but we will not win all the games. Our approach is to come to every game with the mindset of winning. In order to win we need to give good effort and play good football which is what we are working on.”
“It’s not easy CAF decided we play on the 23rd when players are arriving on the 20th so we will have two days of preparations after they have played on the weekend. Still we don’t know what’s happening with Mabika,” he added.
Grant has reiterated that the door is open for all Zambian players based at home or abroad and the only catch is having the quality and passion to play for the National Team.
“The door is open to everybody, The door for me is open for any Zambian around the World. They need to show three things: Quality , passion and will to give everything for the country because they are not representing themselves but the country. They need to give everything to make the people happy, I will make sure it happens,” he said.
“They need to prove themselves, if they will have the quality and passion who knows.”
“This year is 50 years in football. I don’t remember one day without pressure. Pressure is good, it pushes you to achieve. The reason I came here is for the expectations, I have a long term goal of going to the World Cup for the first time but it starts from here. We need to have a winning team that has passion and uses the pressure to succeed.
“There are no easy games anymore but we will do everything to win and the supporters are part of us. They should come and push us,” he added.
Zambia hosts Lesotho on Thursday, March 23 at Levy Mwanawasa Stadium in Ndola in an 18:00 hours kickoff, before facing the Likuena at Dobsonville Stadium in Johannesburg three days later in the reverse fixture.
Tickets for the March 23 encounter have since gone on sale and are being sold at K50 North and South Wing, K100 East Wing, K150 West (Lower and Upper) Wings and K200 VVIP at CompuTicket in all Shoprite stores countrywide.
What’s the final squad for these games??? Who is flying in?