The Zambia U-17 Women’s national team has so far played South Africa and Tanzania at the ongoing COSAFA tournament winning both games by a 2-1 scoreline.
The Copper Princesses have managed to score four goals and have allowed 2 goals so far.
Despite conceding two goals in the two games, Goalkeeper coach Alex Sikanyika believes the goal minders are equal to the task.
“I think I will start with the goalkeeping department looking at the preparation we have had back home and how much the goalkeepers have been fairing out if I add the last games we had those where world cup qualifiers and now we are playing the COSAFA tournament games, I think we are up to the task we are doing better in that the goalkeeper who’s there now who has taken over from ing’ utu Muchahabali from YASA shes up to the task she’s doing better because according to the levels of expectations which are hard,” he said.
“According to how much we prepared am there to see what I was expecting and looking at the two teams we played those are the giants Tanzania and South Africa and looking at the games we had were strong enough to give us strong oppositions and if you look at the goalkeeper who was there in both games Chitete Munsaka stood firm she showed character and she did us favor and we can see we are good to go with the same goalkeeper and she showed that character that she can give us something and make us proud at the end of the tournament,” he added
The first choice Chitete Munsaka made a mistake in the first goal to allow South Africa a cheap goal but Sikanyika revealed to the ZamFoot Crew that he talked with her advising her to work hard and make mother Zambia proud.
“I just told her to continue working hard and to make sure she does not concede any goal because it will up her CV and she will learn a lot from there and she has to work hard for mother Zambia so that she can make people back home proud, and one thing I told her the more she plays the better she becomes I just emphasize on been alert and communicate with the defense so that she can come up with the clean sheet,” he said.
“If you look at the last goal we allowed against Tanzania it was the issue of defenders they went to sleep a little bit whereby she had to make a save the rebound the defenders failed to clear, which was her duty to command the defense at every time so that they remain alert at all times so that they work together as a defense because defense starts from the goalkeeping up to somewhere in the midfield. So I told her to stay alert and continue working hard and in the last two games she can keep a clean sheet at all costs,” he added.
Zambia will be back in action tomorrow when they square off with the Comoros Islands in their third game of the Tournament.
