Zambia Under-20 coach Osward Mutapa Jr says this year’s COSAFA Youth Championship will be tough.
The Junior Chipolopolo will be in Lesotho to defend the COSAFA Under-20 Championship that takes place from December 3-14.
Mutapa said Zambia must prepare well for the regional championship that was last staged two years ago in Botswana.
“It will be tough (although) we won it in 2009, 2010, 2011, it will be tough but we need to be active that is why we will have a month of preparations,” Mutapa said.
Zambia is in Group C together with their arch-rivals South Africa, Namibia and Seychelles.
Mutapa revealed that the junior team will begin final preparations next month.
“The first week of November, we will be calling 26 players so that we just widen selection then after that week, we will call 30 players to prepare for the tournament.”
The Under-20 on Wednesday lost 2-1 to their Under-23 counterparts in a practice match staged in Lusaka to mark Zambia’s 49th Independence Anniversary.
the harder they come………
good luck mutapa, but just make sure there is no age cheating.
Organization is a chronic problem at FAZ . FAZ is always waiting until the last minute to scramble youth teams together. Last minute fattening of the proverbial cow has surely made us champions in Southern Africa, but that’s NOT good enough at CAF and FIFA competitions. That’s why we Zambian fans have been perennially relegated to watching other youth teams compete at CAF and FIFA levels. Case in point, current U17 World Cup. Every quarter our youth teams should be kept active (camping and competitions). There are so many youth competitions in every continent going on where federations would be glad to host us all year round. Our Kids would really learn a lot. FAZ, I love you but stop waiting for competitions to be announced before you start assembling any national youth side.
They could have given best coach Patrice Beamulle & best assistant Davies Phiri to coach those Under 23 all the way to Under 5 too.