By FELIX MALUNGA and SHAMAOMA MUSONDA –

AFTER fashioning out a 0-0 draw in Nigeria on Sunday, Zambia Under-23 soccer coach, Fighton Simukonda believes his charges will subdue the West Africans in the return leg of the 2015 All-Africa Games (AAG) final qualifiers.
Simukonda said his Olympic team did well to avoid an away defeat at the Abuja National Stadium and now need to plot the downfall of Nigeria’s Dream Team.
“We have done our best in avoiding defeat away from home. We still have the second leg. I know it won’t be easy but we have no choice but to deliver,” Simukonda told fazfootball.com in a post-match interview.
But Nigeria coach, Samson Siasia remains hopeful that his players will get the job done in the second leg and believes the Zambians will be forced out of their shell.
“If they (Zambia) could come here and get a draw, we could go there and beat them 2-0. We are not going to relent; we will give our best in the second leg. We did very well. The fact that we did not score does not mean this is a bad team,” Siasia said during a post-match Press briefing.
Meanwhile, Shepolopolo coach Albert Kachinga has refused to throw the towel in the race to qualify for the AAG final finals despite losing 4-2 to Tanzania in the final round first leg match.
“Tanzania came here and won on a day we did not play too badly, we can actually go and overturn the result. We just have to work hard and we have seen these things happen before,” he said.
He said the team did not train for a long time as a unit, especially that some players were playing at such a high level for the time thus making schoolboy errors.
Tanzania coach Rogasia Kaijage was emphatic in his interview saying it was game over for Zambia and that his sight was now at preparing at competing at the AAG finals.
“This side we played was a weak one which had a lot of young players. The team we played last time was strong, had a lot of skilled players but that was lacking in this game. But anyway, we came prepared for a strong Zambia and we are happy we have won like this,” Kaijage said.
Sports Minister Vincent Mwale consoled the players urging them to put the result behind and focus on the return leg with optimism.