. Mwape

By GWEN CHIPASULA – STRIKER Bornwell Mwape says he is happy to be back in the Chipolopolo fold ahead of the friendly match against Rwanda.
Meanwhile, midfielder Bruce Musakanya has been ruled out of Sunday’s match against Rwanda after failing to recover from a hamstring injury that also saw him miss the Under-23 All Africa Games qualifier against Nigeria.
Mwape, who was the first of the five foreign based players to join camp, said in an interview at the Heroes National Stadium that he will give his best to ensure he scores for the Chipolopolo.
The AmaZulu striker said it was an honour for him to be included in Honour Janza’s 27 member provisional squad and vowed to work hard to retain his place in the squad.
“It has been a while since I last played for the national team and people should expect goals this weekend. I will give in my best because this match is important and I also need to repay the coach’s confidence,” he said.
Janza said the match will accord the coaching bench the opportunity to assess more local players ahead of the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) qualifiers in June.
He said he decided to call up some foreign based players to help beef up the squad and motivate the local players as the team prepares for the COSAFA Senior Challenge to be held in May in South Africa.
“This game will greatly help as we prepare for the COSAFA tournament and this is why I did not call many of our foreign based players because we want to see which local players we can use for the tournament,” he said.
Other foreign based players summoned for the match include captain Rainford Kalaba, Given Singuluma, Aaron Katebe and Kabaso Chongo.
“Looking at our calendar, we have the COSAFA tournament, AFCON qualifiers in June and the World Cup qualifiers in October. So these friendly matches will greatly help in preparing for these tournaments,” he said
This will be the first match the Chipolopolo will be playing since the first round exit at the 2015 AFCON finals in Equatorial Guinea with Janza expecting to have a full squad by today.
On Musakanya, Janza said the player has been told that he required total rest and as such would not be part of the team.