By SHAMAOMA MUSONDA at Luveve Stadium, Bulawayo –
Zambia 4 Malawi 0
STRIKER Patrick Ngoma scored a hat-trick as Zambia whacked Malawi to reach the COSAFA Under-20 football finals at the ongoing Africa Union Sports Commission (AUSU) Region Five Games in Zimbabwe.
This routine win over the Eastern neighbours in the first semi-final match played at Luveve Stadium and automatically guarantees Zambia a medal in football but the colour will be decided today if it will be gold or silver.
It was tournament top scorer Ngoma who destroyed Malawi to take his goal tally to six goals at this tournament.
This win means that Zambia, who have made it to the final without conceding a goal in open play, will today play Zimbabwe, who beat Namibia 1-0 in the other semi-final, at the Barbourfields Stadium in Youth Games’ closing match.
After a confusion on which team had made the semi final, Malawi came to this semi-getting the nod ahead of Angola after it was explained that the rules would be based on head-to-head and not goal-difference.
Malawi came into the match determined to stop a rampant Zambia pushing for an early goal in the opening minutes.
But a disciplined Zambia defence held strong but the signs were clear that once the Hector Chilombo side started pushing forward, it would be an avalanche of goals that was to follow and no one was better placed to start this rout than Ngoma.
Ngoma put Zambia ahead after a pass from Charles Yande in the 11th minute and was on hand again to add one more goal in the 23rd minute after a well timed pass from Kasashi Chalwe, who had been restored to the starting team ahead of Harrison Chisala for a 2-0 half time lead.
The second half started with right back Solomon Sakala making a foray on the wing and crossed to an unmarked Patson Daka who nodded in Zambia’s third on 50 minutes.
Ngoma completed his day’s work with a close range tap-in after good work on the right by Chrispin Sakulanda four minutes later.
Immediately after, assistant coach Bilton Musonda signalled Chilombo to rest the two strikers in Ngoma and Daka as the game became scrappy with Malawi becoming rough.
It came as a surprise that Malawi survived a red card but still received six yellow cards just in the second half.
The Zambian players took the gas off the pedal and wasted up to three gilt edge chances before registering a sixth straight win scoring 16 times and conceded just once from the penalty spot.
Chilombo in a post match interview expressed happiness with his player’s performance and restated his mission of winning gold at the game.
“We made our statement known from the first game and we are happy we are still on track. I am happy with all the players here, the frontline has scored 16 goals, created by the midfield and then the defence and the goalkeeper have conceded just one goal and that is from a penalty. I am very happy with them,” he said.