By SHAMAOMA MUSONDA –
THE Shepolopolo this afternoon take on the ‘Mighty Warriors’ of Zimbabwe at Nkoloma Stadium in a Rio 2016 Olympic Games qualifier aiming to make amends for failure to qualify for the Congo Brazzaville 2015 All Africa Games.
Fans will be hoping for a good match after the Shepolopolo’s last match against Tanzania ended 4-2 in favour of the visitors though today’s match will not be easy going by the past results against Zimbabwe.
However, Football Association of Zambia (FAZ) executive member in-charge of women football, Lenny Nkhuwa believes the hurt from losing against Tanzania will be motivation enough needed for the girls going into this tricky game.
“The girls played so well in Tanzania and they just have to build on that in this game and get through to the next stage of the Olympics qualifier,” Nkhuwa said.
The Shepolopolo have never qualified for the Olympics but with the Under-17 side last year qualified and played at their first ever World Cup finals while the Shepolopolo qualified for their first ever Africa Women Championships.
But the team are ready to break more barriers by seeking for a place at the Olympic Games to be held in Brazil.
With Zambia looking at a bad record a few months ago in the AAG qualifiers, the story is pretty much the same for their opponents today who are famously called the Mighty Warriors.
As Zambia was losing 6-5 on aggregate in the AAG qualifier to Tanzania, Zimbabwe was booted out of those qualifiers by Ghana via a 4-3 result on both legs and this outing, like Zambia, is one they cannot afford to lose.
But Zimbabwe is historically a tough challenge for Zambia and is stronger than Tanzania with the Shepolopolo hoping to pluck courage from last year’s AWC qualifier in which they earned a place at the Namibia tournament with two 1-0 wins over the Mighty Warriors.
However, Zambia can be happy that for the first time, they will be playing a side that seems to have more problems going into the match and will hope this works to their advantage.
Zimbabwe coach Rosemary Mugadza had problems putting together not just her team for this encounter but also coming up with assistant coach Mebelo Njekwa, who was released late by his Premier Soccer League club, Hwange FC.
But they fought hard and put together a team which rolled into Lusaka in the wee hours of yesterday and take to the pitch just over 24 hours after arrival to face a Grace Chanda led Zambian attack.
Chanda will be assisted in tearing Zimbabwe apart by Mary Mwakapila and the mercurial Ireen Lungu with the winners of this second round match up set to meet the winner between Côte d’Ivoire and Tunisia.