Leicester City. What a story for world club and international football.

By George Kasengele

It has boiled down to various edicts of professional sports. Belief, discipline, dedication and hard work with a measure of luck and capitalising on that luck.

It’s the same story of the AFCON 2012 Zambian victory.

To win championships you need the five key elements to be in sync. The Management (Board), Coaching staff, players, support staff and the fan base believing in a dream. The Board creates the vision which results in the recruitment of coaching staff who share in the vision by buying or identifying players who fit into that vision. The fans then give support to that vision and espouse it in whatever manner imaginable.

For international football not every player who plays in the Zambian Super League can meet the demands to play at international level. Some players become instant hits and you have late bloomers like Chris Katongo and most recently Winstone Kalengo.

At Under 23 level Katongo played second fiddle to his young brother Felix who was more nimble footed and exciting as a player. But with the five edicts of professional sports Chris worked hard to become an accomplished professional player who played in Zambia, South Africa, Denmark, Germany and China and in between became the captain of the Zambia National Team more than the younger brother. People may not know that Kalengo from his Zanaco days has been a proven goal scorer at local level but never made the cut despite the numerous national team call ups in the last eight to ten years. It boils down to big game temperament especially at international level because you are competing with the best of the countries you face.

We now have Kalengo now flying high and relishing every moment of his newly found international pedigree.

The Leicester championship should give our local players the sense of belief that impossible is nothing. Especially our local strikers. Vardy was playing non professional football a few years ago and in now the English player of season. The players Players of Year Marezz was bought from a nondescript club for £400 000.00. How much are these two players worth now.

Emmanuel Mayuka as top scorer at AFCON 2012 went on to be sold to Southampton from Maccabi Tel Aviv for over a million dollars with Kabwe Warriors who initially made so much hullabaloo about nothing benefitting from the sale on agreement.

If non Zambians continue to keep Zesco United and Nkana at the top of the Zambian Super League then where will the national team draw it’s players from.

Our dependence on over 30 players like Kalengo, Mbesuma and Katongo at international level can only sustain us for two to three years. It is time for the local coaching fraternity to identify players for our future especially since we will be hosting the African Youth Championships in less than nine months.

A dedicated a thorough selection process for the players meeting the required age limit needs to be undertaken immediately which should be followed up with an elaborate and stringent training programme to include international matches at home and abroad needs to be financially sourced and supported.

If we miss the vision of the Under 20 2017 then Zambia would have missed an opportunity to win it’s second AFCON and qualify to its first World Cup in Qatar in 2022.

Success comes with a lot of sacrifice and a realisation that we have an opportunity to build on our hosting of the AYC Under 20 in 2017 to replicate the cycle of the 2003 to 2012 vision. Tough and unpopular decisions were made but they resulted in a vision being realised.

We can borrow from Martin Luther King Juniors “l have a dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC in the 60’s to spur us on. But ultimately without belief the dream will remain but a pipe dream.

The author is immediate past CEO of the Football Association of Zambia