Friday, March 29, 2024

Miserable U-23 players need encouragement – Simukonda

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Coach Fighton Simukonda says his Under-23 players need encouragement after their disastrous outing at the 2016 Junior Africa Cup in Senegal.

Zambia last night ended their outing at the CAF Under-23 Cup with a 1-0 loss to the host nation Senegal.

Mahamadou Diallo’s 4th minute goal condemned Zambia to their third consecutive loss at the tournament.

In a post-match interview, Simukonda said Zambia were unfortunate to leave Senegal without a win nor a point.

He said football can be cruel some times.

“We are out but it is not the end of the World. But like I always say, football can be very cruel.

The players we have now are the future of the Zambia national football team. We need to encourage the boys,” Simukonda said.

The Junior Chipolopolo squad returns home without accumulating a point on top of failing to qualify for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.

Zambia finished bottom of Group A with no points after losing to Tunisia 2-1 before South Africa handed them a 3-2 defeat on Tuesday.

“We lost all our matches because our players thought we had easy games. Most of the time we were marking late and giving space to our opponents. That’s how we lost all the three games,” he said.

Simukonda added:”In the beginning we came here to qualify but unfortunately we failed to qualify.”

Senegal and South Africa progressed to the semi-finals from Group A.

3 COMMENTS

  1. If there is any iota of moral integrity, the coaching bench should resign immediately they arrived in the country as simple as that. There is no excuse nor explanation that is needed for the miserable outing

  2. Simukonda and entire technical bench including the physician should be fired. No way can we accept that shameful defeat eg players failing to trap and passing the ball. It was, iwe clear and defender shoots a high ball to no where. No encouragment to that we just start afresh drop 70% of these players build up competition. Football in zambia is still considered as something for fun not as employment. You do not perform, out, let others deliver, it ends

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