Zambia battle Botswana on Friday in CHAN qualifier

Zambia kicks off its 2020 CHAN qualifying campaign on Friday when they visit Botswana in a penultimate round, first leg tie in Francistown on Friday night.

Friday’s meeting will be the second between Chipolopolo and the Zebras in the last 60 days.

Zambia beat Botswana 1-0 on June 8 in the 2019 COSAFA Cup final play in Durban, South Africa.

Scorer of that lone goal at Moses Mabhida Stadium, Tapson Kaseba, said they will not underrate Botswana despite that result.

“Yes, I would love to score again against Botswana but we have to work as a team to get an away win on Friday,” Kaseba said.

Kaseba, though, is one of two players who missed the first two weeks of training camp together with his Green Eagles club mate and goalkeeper, Sebastian Mwange, who were both away in Rwanda at the CECAFA Club Cup where they won Bronze with their club.

The duo including Chipolopolo and Green Eagles coach Aggrey Chiyanyi joined camp on Monday just 48 hours before Zambia departure for Botswana.

And Botswana are expected to field half of the team that lost in that COSAFA final as others are ineligible because they are foreign-based.

“It is not difficult to gel, we are all familiar with each other so we will just work as a win,” Kaseba said.

“All we want to do is not to underrate them just because half the team we beat will not be there.”

Meanwhile, Zambia are injury free and Chiyangi is set to name an identical starting XI as he did at the COSAFA Cup.

However, midfielder Larry Bwalya of Power Dynamos of Nkana’s Kelvin Mubanga who were drafted in the second week of training camp and were not part of the COSAFA campaign could start on Friday.