Friday, March 29, 2024

Zambia stunned by 10-man Italian job

Share

10-man Italy broke Zambia’s semifinal dreams at the 2017 FIFA U20 World Cup on Monday after an 3-2 extra-time win in Suwon.

The match brought down the curtain on the Zambia U20’s fairy tale run in South Korea where they team was hoping to reach another milestone following their our debut quarterfinal qualification.

It started off well with Patson Daka giving Zambia a story book lead the 3rd minute.

12 minutes later, Emmanuel Banda saw his superb free kick parried by the outstanding Andrea Zaccagno.

Italy then had Giuseppe Pezzella sent off in the 43rd minute for a tag on Edward Chilufya who had his gun sights locked on the Europeans’ goal.

However that did not break Italy’s resolve and they equalised in the 50th minute through Riccardo Orsolini.

Then, the spotlight fell on the outstanding Zaccagno who denied Fashion Sakala twice in the 56th and 66th minutes.

In-between,Zaccagno also shut-out Boyd Musonda’s volley in the 64th minutes as Zambia threw everything at Gli Azzurri.

Sakala calmed Zambians nerves with a fine second goal in the 84th minute to netting what was seemingly the teams semifinal ticket.

However,Zambia’s inability to deal with set pieces returned to haunt them and Federico Dimarco leveled in the 88th minute via a stunning free kick to force the tie into 30 minutes extra time.

Luca Vido put the final nail in the contest with a head-in goal, Dimarco was the architect from the corner, to see Zambia exit the tournament.

18 COMMENTS

  1. LESSON 1 = Don’t mix sport & politics. Some PF00ls were saying HH should remain in Jail bcoz U20 has been winning since HH was jailed. Lungu has been planning to score a politically with U20 world champions & solidify his dictatorship. But God saw his plans & thwarted them.
    – LESSON 2 = Don’t mix religion & sport. The U20 knelt together in a circle each time they scored. But when the match ended, they refused to kneel down.
    – LESSON 3 = Sport is just a game, an entertainment just like watching a movie. Work hard & be prosperous. to misquote Karl Marx’s saying “Football is the opium (a pain-killer) for the poor people (religion is the opium of the people)

    The problems we had before the tournament started are still with us:- mealie-meal, fuel & electricity prices still remain high…

    • there is a very simple explanation for the loss! Italy has the Pope and Zambia has Seer 1! I rest my case!

  2. CONT’D …

    mealie-meal, fuel & electricity prices still remain high. Lungu’s dictatorship is still with us. The rotten judiciary is still with us.

    Dora Siliya’s son has been paid for the cheap quality jerseys but U20 guys won’t be paid their allowances & bonuses till 2018.

  3. U20 Zambia Los told because of HH being in Prison. They played well, but the spirits have said No.

  4. You proved you were african champions by being the last african team standing. Well done boys. You entertained the world by your superb display of skills. In you we have a future zambian team ready to take on the world. Stay focused. Job well done.

  5. Our coaching team were tactically very bad from the first game with Portugal,we knew we had a defensive problem,we score goal but we can’t defend that a problem,look at all the games we played we couldn’t keep a clean sheet.In this game with Italy when they lost a player we should have taken advantage by leaving our top guy number 9 on top & drop everyone in defense then hit them on a counter attack, its as simple as that

  6. The boys did well and congratulations to the entire team together with the coaching staff. Though I have misgivings on the coaching staff for failing to deal with defensive problems in every game Zambia played from Africa cup to World cup.In a world cup you don’t expect to score more than two goals to win a match. Check world cup history, even at senior level scores above 2 in a match are exceptional achievements during tournaments. So if you can’t defend a goal or two in a tournament then you are likely not to go very far. We won Africa cup due to our boys’ prolific scoring but you can’t rely on strikers scoring more than two goals in every game to win matches. Not even Barcelona or Real Madrid does that. Otherwise Congratulation!

  7. Some Magistrates gave long adjournments so that they could free their time to watch soccer. You jinxed us! Don’t mix injustice and fair play! Otherwise our team would have gone all the way to the finals.

  8. I am exceeding proud of you, Zambia Under 20 Squad. You were simply a marvel, boys. We look forward to receiving you back home.

  9. Keep your heads up high ,you represented us well despite missing out for the semi, better luck next time .

  10. I am Italian and I am proud of what we did but I love a Zambian lady and I cannot be completely happy for our victory because my heart is half Zambian 🙂 I wish a very gud luck to Chipolopolo for next time!

  11. We have a serious problem in Zambia. Elimination at quarter final stage of a world cup you potentially could have won is a laudable feat according to the majority of Zambians, both on this forum and elsewhere.
    Anyway it looks like the coach and many other Zambians had achieved their dreams by qualifying to Korea 2017, so even if the boys had wanted to go further, the drag was too much to counter.
    At the same time I feel what happened was according to God’s own scheme of things and nothing much could change it, not even better coaching or individual brilliance from players. Otherwise at least half of those myriads of scoring chances we had would have resulted in goals.
    Maybe the Lord God Almighty is trying to tell us something through this experience.

  12. Comment:good job guyz. we happy of you, you know what you did and what you didn’t do. please work on what you have to work on and move on. love you

  13. CONGRATULATIONS FOR GOING THUS FAR. WHEN ARE THEY COMING BACK SO THAT WE CAN RECEIVE THEM IN JUBILAITON!!. GOD BLESS OUR BOYS, AMEN

  14. Well done boys. We are proud of you. But, the technical beach should know when to defend and when to attack more. We were always conceding goals when the game is almost over. This was due to poor coaching. Look at the game of Germany Vs Zambia, we allowed two goals in injury time. The Coach could have just making an unnecessary substitution to kill time. Come on Zambian Beach Pull up your socks.

Comments are closed.

Read more

Local News

Discover more from Lusaka Times-Zambia's Leading Online News Site - LusakaTimes.com

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading