From SHAMAOMA MUSONDA In Bulawayo  –
COACH Hector Chilombo has praised the Zambia Under-20 soccer team for an efficient display after humiliating South Africa 6-1 on Friday in the Group B opening game of the Africa Union Sports Council (AUSC) Youth Games in Zimbabwe.
Chilombo has, however, cautioned his players to remain level headed, especially after the relatively easy manner in which they dispatched pre-tournament favourites South Africa to kick-start the competition on a high.
He said in a post match interview that playing South Africa was never easy for Zambia and that posting a convincing win had his charges direction of how the tournament would go.
“The first game of every tournament is always important and this win has given us direction. But we have to keep working hard to get the gold. South Africa were favourites and this performance confirms that we are now favourites. I am happy that this win will raise confidence among the players,” he said.
He was full of praise for Zambia Under-17 captain Patson Daka, who netted a hat-trick in 16 minutes, saying having a striker who always scores is great because that brings a winning belief in the rest of the players.
Chef-de-Mission Gibson Muyaule was equally happy with the team’s showing, saying it was good that the team, without the majority of players missing from the Under-20 team that qualified to the Africa Youth Championship in Senegal, could perform so well.
Muyaule said the performance was an indication of the vast level of quality and the bright future that offers Zambian football.
South Africa coach Molefi Ntseki was disappointed with his team, saying the performance was way below what he expected and hoped for better showing in the coming games.
Ntseki partly attributed the loss to South Africa featuring an Under-17 squad while admitting that his side offered no quality.
“I brought the Under-17 because I wanted to gauge them for the Africa Junior Championship to be played in February next year. This was supposed to help them get psychologically prepared to play high quality football and against technically good sides.
But I do not think I have achieved what I wanted from this game, we never came to the party and we lacked confidence. We were simply not good,” he said.
Zambia next plays Namibia tomorrow in a 14:00 hours kickoff while South Africa will play Lesotho at 16:30 hours at Luveve Stadium.