Zanaco on Friday face Tunisian giants Esperance in a 2nd round, 1st leg tie of this year’s Caf Africa Champions League away in Tunis.
It will be Zanaco’s 4th outing in the competition in which they have yet to reach the group stage of Africa’s premier club competitions.
Moreover, Zanaco have yet to also eliminate an Arab opponent in two of their last three Champions League outings.
Egyptian club Ismaily ousted Zanaco in the 2003 edition of the tournament with the Sunset side losing in 1st round 1-0 away to bow out 1-0 on aggregate,
Later in 2006, Algerian club JS Kabylie ejected Zanaco from the competition 3-0 away after earlier winning 1-0 at home, going out 3-1 on aggregate.
Meanwhile, Zanaco stuttered through from the 1st round with a 1-0 aggregate win over Likhopo of Lesotho after drawing 0-0 away in the first leg and are away their have some serious work cut out for them in Tunis against the 1994 African champions.
Esperance, in their last round matches, cruised to a 6-1 aggregate win via 4-0 and 2-1 home and away wins respectively over Renaissance of Chad.
And in the Caf Confederations Cup, Green Buffaloes will be in action on Saturday away to St Pauloise of The Reunion Island.
Buffaloes enjoyed a preliminary round bye in this year’s Confed Cup.
ALL we can wish is the best to Zanaco. The disappointing thing is that the standards of play in Zambia are low as compared to other countries. Watching Esperance last week playing against a local team, I could tell that our zambian team is going to have an uphill battle. The Team has speed and have sharpe passes, I think zanaco shuld have sent some spies to come earlier and watch some of the games.
we should improve the standards of our play if we are to make any progression in these competitions or we shall continue to be passengers.