All Stars vs Rest excites

FOOTBALL Association of Zambia (FAZ) president Andrew Kamanga says Monday’s All Stars versus the Rest clash at Nkoloma Stadium is part of feedback from fans whenever selection of national team players is conducted. Featuring on SuperSport’s Bola Yapa Zed show, Kamanga said FAZ has taken note of the outcry from fans over selection of national team players and decided to give fans an opportunity to pick their team that will compete against the selected side for CHAN. “We have noticed in the last few months that each time the technical bench picks a team there is an outcry. Of course, coaches have their own criteria, but we did not want to close the door,” he said. The FAZ boss said the players picked for CHAN will be the core of the campaign that will culminate into Africa Cup of Nations deciders in March. “This is not a start-stop kind of situation. The players picked for CHAN will be the ones carrying us all the way up to the Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers. The next three months will be very critical for us,” he said. Kamanga said the CHAN campaign had birthed international careers for Zambia like Augustine Mulenga, Justin Shonga and Lazarous Kambole. The CHAN team will play against a people’s select team of local players on Monday at Nkoloma Stadium with entry declared free. Fans have been invited to select players of their choice from the local league that have been omitted in Milutin ‘Micho’ Sredojevic’s Cameroon bound squad. FAZ has partnered with MTN with fans picking their best 11 players and sending the names to 333 via MTN. And Kamanga said results will eventually come with continuous investment in the grassroots. “When we reached the final of the AFCON in 2012, that team had been built from 2003 so it took a nine-year period to get to the peak. During those same nine years, we should have continuously been adding the younger ones,” he said. “You may not see the roof today but at the bottom things are really working.” He added: “The results will eventually come; we have not been to the Africa Cup twice. These are real challenges, but also how many players do we have in competitive leagues in Europe? In EPL, Germany, Spain, and France but the younger ones who are coming are already spoken for. Sabobo (Joseph) is going for trials in Barcelona, the other player is going to Spain. We hope that within the next two to three years we should now get our best players in competitive leagues in Europe. That is what is going to take to the next level.” Kamanga disclosed that the women national team that holed up in Chile after some members tested positive for Covid-19 have come back with only six members remaining. He said the six were expected home this weekend after served the second phase of their quarantine. The Copper Queens beat Chile on November 28, 2020 in an international friendly in Santiago with the second game that was set for December 1, 2020 cancelled after four players tested positive for Covid-19. Zambia grabbed Africa’s automatic Olympic qualification spot and will represent the continent at the Tokyo 2020 (to be played in 2021) Olympic Games.