Peter Kaumba has demanded character from his Zambia under 23 ahead of the Olympic Games qualifying matches including the All Africa Games qualifiers thereafter.
Kaumba’s side kicks off with an Olympics qualifier against Malawi on February 10 in Lusaka before facing them in the final leg on March 14 away.
Winner there will go on to the group stage on the road to Beijing that kicks off in June.
“The players know the importance of winning in the Olympics and All Africa Games qualifiers that’s why they are here,” Kaumba said at the end of Tuesday morning’s training session.
“Every game will be tough and very important to us and it doesn’t matter what team we will play but we will prepare hard for them and we have to win because no games are not easy games.”
After the final leg away leg match in Malawi, Zambia under 23 will face either Zimbabwe or Mozambique during the April Fools day weekend in the first leg of the final round qualifiers for next July’s All Africa Games.
Winner over both legs will qualify to the All Africa Games final tournament to be held in Algeria.
U/23 LOSES TO NIGERIA
The zanbian under 23 team went down to Nigeria in the congo by a 4-2 margin. the sloppy zambian defence let in three goals before the half time period but managed to pull themselves together and cut down the margin to 3-2. unfortunately the nigerians increased the tally to 4-2 by full time.
A sad loss for my beloved country but impressed with the come back. The lesson learnt from this is not to relax at the start or end of any game and every second counts in the game of soccer.
Today, Zambia will face Cameroon who also lost there first game 1-0 to Egypt. This will be a tight game as any of the losers of today will have to pack and go.
I will put my money on Zambia.