. Lwandamina

By MOSES CHIMFWEMBE –

ZESCO United coach, George Lwandamina believes victory over Mozambique’s Ferroviario da Beira in the 2014 CAF Confederation Cup will boost the team’s confidence ahead of the next continental assignment against Medeama of Ghana and the start of the MTN-FAZ Premier Division League season.
The Ndola outfit at the weekend recorded a 1-0 win over Ferroviario at Levy Mwanawasa Stadium to progress to the second round of the Confederation Cup.
It was Zesco’s first victory of the year after a rocky build-up.
During a post-match conference, Lwandamina said having a difficult pre-season training where Zesco lost all the warm up matches, a victory over Ferroviario was the right tonic for the players to re-discover their winning formula.
“I am very happy with the win and I must say it will boost our confidence to go forward in the competition. The game was tough and I feel we created a lot of chances that would have killed the game. I would like to commend the players for putting up a splendid performance.
“Now that we have gone into the second of the competition, we have to compress our training programme so that  we prepare adequately for the next round,” he said.
Lwandamina said the technical bench would now work on sealing all the loopholes in the team and that Zesco’s chances of making it to group stages were bright.
He noted that lack of coordination in the team was an issue which needed urgent attention.
“We are putting in place new ideas in the team and if players assimilate the new ideas, we will achieve our target of reaching the group stage of the competition,” Lwandamina added.
And Ferroviario assistant coach Victor Matine said Zesco deserved to win because they put up a good performance.
Matine said his team had drawn positives from the game as they wait for the next edition of the tournament.
“We have to get back to the drawing board and see where  we went wrong, otherwise, congratulations to Zesco for victory.
Zesco will face-off with Ghana’s Medeama in the next round of the Confederation Cup.
Medeama knocked out Moroccan side Maghreb de Fez 4-2 on aggregate despite losing the weekend fixture 2-1 in Fez.