Football administrator Ricky Mamfunda has backed a local coach for the vacant Chipolopolo coaching job in the interim after the departure of Milutin “Micho” Sredojevic.
Micho was fired over the weekend following Zambia’s embarrassing 2021 COSAFA Cup outing in South Africa where they lost to Eswatini and Lesotho.
The Serb was in charge of Chipolopolo for close to two years.
“My suggestion would be, for now let’s constitute maybe a team of two, three or four local coaches just to handle the World Cup qualifiers as we sit and look at who would be the best option to take over the reins at Chipolopolo,” said Mamfunda, the former Power Dynamos – General Secretary.
“Truth be told, I don’t see us going to the World Cup. I may be wrong but looking at where the new coach is going to start from, it will be a tall order.”
Mamfunda said the dismissal of Micho was inevitable.
“Coach Micho’s departure was written over the wall. I know he failed to come up with a team that would form what one may call the Zambia National Team,” he said.
“I also feel his way of dealing with players. He may not have been able to inspire confidence in his players as a result he failed.”
“I also want to commend FAZ for the great support given to coach Micho. The coach Micho and all of us need to appreciate that FAZ went out of its way to organise a lot of quality friendly matches,” Mamfunda said.
“Coach Micho was given a lot of support. It is my wish and expectation that going forward FAZ will be able to offer the same kind of support to whoever is going to be employed as Chipolopolo coach.”
The delayed 2022 FIFA World Cup qualifying campaign is scheduled to kickoff in September.
We need Wada permanently as temporal measures derail the qualifiers like the last one for the afcon
He left t6he team when it needed him most.Recall past coaches,like Patrick Phiri and about three of
r so to assist hime, preferably those who had managed under 17, 19 and 20 National teams.These will help build the team. on the other hand, players are the main culprits , thu
ought the coach receives the blame always.Inqaddition, the Kamanga haters are still arround and could be the master minds of the ” poor men’s performance”. Kamanga is not alone, he a team.How has FAZ developed Women Soccer and manged to export girls in professional europian teams. It is gratifying to see the author of this article appreciating the good job FAZ is doing and has done.Soccer is now professionally managed!!! This is a very big achievement and the onus now3 is on the clubs’ to develop…
The approach of our current crop of players to the game is very casual. Their conduct off the pitch is worrisome. Ba chakolwa, womanizers, some even smoking the pot. That Serbian football mercenary was lucky man to have lasted that long at FAZ as National Team coach. His performance was to say the least pathetic coupled with his experimenting with players on important games. The way forward is to engage coaches who understand our local league not these journey men you pick any how or adding color to the technical bench. Lets do with our own man power and pay them same check like Micho. We have the likes of Mohammed, Davies Phiri, Wedson “Wada” Nyirenda, Aggrey Chiyangi, Patrick Phiri. We still have a chance to qualify using the City Ya Moto formula, if that team beats X and Y draws…
These are just jokes now! Zambians soccer fans like going round and round! When a local coach is employed they will start calling for a foreign coach, saying the capabilities of a local coach are not enough for modern footbalk! A foreign coach is employed they will start calling for a foreign coach! Micho should have been given a bit more time! He’s a good coach but he was being let down by the lack of quality local players because the local league has been over run by sub standard foreign players, bringing down the quality of local football! I don’t see any quality local coach who can handle the men’s soccer team with the assumed modern coaching Technics which include ICT-based training methodologies, Psychology, Fitness and strategical and tactical planning! Our local coaches always…