December 9, 2008
Zambia national under-20 soccer team on Tuesday afternoon were dumped out of the ongoing SADC Zone Six games by Angola. The Junior Chipolopolo Boys lost 4-3 on penalties as Angola advanced to the finals.
After recording a 100 percent winning streak in the group stages, the Oswald Mutapa Jr boys played to a goalless stalemate.
Under-20 before departure for the SADC Zone six games at Lusaka’s Sunset stadium @ a training session. Above Derrick Mwansa (17) making his point as the rest of the boys listens.
In the penalty lottery, Henry Banda, Innocent Mwaba and Micheal Katongo coveted while Musonda Munaile and John Ching’angu failed to find the target as the boys from Lusaka bowed out of the competition.
The Zone Six exit sums up the junior Chipolopolo’s disappointing 2008 football calender. In December 2007, the highly rated under-20 which hand the likes of 2007 World Youth Cup duo of Emmanuel Mayuka and Stophira Sunzu in their ranks failed to advance past the group stage of the regional Cosafa under-20 tournament.
While an excuse by then coach George Lwandamina was given as ‘It is a developmental squad for Rwanda 2009 African Youth Cup.” Lwandamina’s words came to haunt his national team boss Herve Renard as the Frenchman took temporal charge of the star-studded young guns and failed to lead them the 2009 AYC finals after losing 4-3 on aggregate to Egypt.
Two months later from a shocking 1-0 loss to the young Pharaohs, the new look young guns failed to advance to Cosafa under-20 semi-finals and with this loss to Angola the usual phrase is back to every die-hard fans….Its back to the drawing!…..But for how long?
And in-terms of developmental soccer, the under-17 national team were also dumped out of the Under-17 Championship slated for Algeria next year.
60 Comments on "Angola end Under-20’s SADC Zone Six title hopes"
| COPYRIGHT © 2007-2011 Zamfoot Sports Agency. All rights reserved. |
Matafwali on Tue, 9th Dec 2008 11:46 PM
This is bad. I don’t know where to begin. Clearly, it is not for lack of talent.
Bola Panshi on Wed, 10th Dec 2008 7:26 AM
I agree with you ba Matafwali. It surely isn’t lack of talent. There should be something to be done somewhere (perhaps mental preparedness) in order for our teams to gain medals. It has always been “Zambia played well or they were the better side side” but we don’t seem to get the goals and win the major ties.
So we again abuse the term “back to the drawing board”. I don’t know how many more times we have to get to our drawing board before we get a medal.
Anyways, hard luck guys. It has been a bad year for our youth teams. What does the future hold?
Justice Kafusha on Wed, 10th Dec 2008 8:14 AM
I have a question and just one question regarding the under20/17/23. Is selection of the players to these teams based om merit?
Sceptic on Wed, 10th Dec 2008 8:27 AM
The Under 20 is so disorganised starting from the Kit (Different socks and shorts) to their coaches who i think are clueless. Mutapa is not good for the Under 20, at least chicken George used to get the best out of those boys.
Negras Palancas on Wed, 10th Dec 2008 8:33 AM
Thats excellent. Now it will be the Zambian senior team that’ll be dumped out of CHAN this saturday by the Angolan senior national team. LOL!!!!
Dinamo on Wed, 10th Dec 2008 9:17 AM
What a disappointing outing for the lads.For sure we will soon hear some official talking of going to the drawing board.I wonder if we even have instruments or paper to use on the board???.The poor perfomance of our youth teams clearly indicates that our future is at risk & if FAZ are committed to develop our game they must admit failure & work to improve on their shortcomings.Otherwise we will just be going round cirlcles & keep talking of the drawing board each time we lose
Big Steve from SA on Wed, 10th Dec 2008 9:19 AM
I am not sure if our U20 boys are that much better than Angola. To be honest we got to the semi final and even though we could have done better it is still a somewhat good result. Penalties are like a coin toss, you just never know. I agree with Sceptic, Mutapa has just not yet reached the level of coaching a national team. His coaching bac ground does not give him enough credit to handle this job. We have a lot of seasoned coaches why pick a rookie. Chicken Lwandamina did wnders with the U20 cause he is seasoned and new just what to do. I think he should have cotinued on at U20 level.
Sometimes when you quickly promote your best sales person to sales manager what you might effectively be doing is losing your best sales person and getting the worst sales manager. Chicken looks like he has no say under HR so the principle applies.
chalie on Wed, 10th Dec 2008 9:49 AM
too bad boys lost
chalie on Wed, 10th Dec 2008 9:51 AM
its i set back any better lack next time its football and it ends n dramatic fashion
BaChiwota on Wed, 10th Dec 2008 9:55 AM
I know footbal is a win-lose game but why should it be always us to lose. Why do we fail especially in later stages at events? Last week we said you can only reap what you sow but i have a feeling we can do better.
Please, please let us promote and support soccer academies at compound level. I have started one in Garden Compound training at Olympia Park High School. Let us all contribute in one way or another.
Vincent Numbwa on Wed, 10th Dec 2008 10:24 AM
Tough luck to our boys. Like Big steve has said it is not too bad a result to lose in the semi`s and on penalty shoot outs which are dice.
I also dont think Mutapa`s credentials are good enough for him to be under 20 coach. FAZ should find a more credible coaches for all juniour national teams.
Sibs on Wed, 10th Dec 2008 10:33 AM
Like Matafwali has said the problem is not talent but it looks like the coach is not geeting the best out of the boys.How can you hold the Mighty of the young Pharaohs at their home & then two weeks later you lose at home.Those boys competed pound for pound with the young Pharaohs but the struggling to beat Lesotho (2-1).
Ba Justice team selection is another issue take for example Munaile’s son was featuring a lot during the ealier games of qualifying to Rwanda but along the way he was put on the bench by H.R.After this Mutapa has had the guts to bench the boy. It looks like he was playing on his dad past glory/office. I may be wrong but thats my personal opinion.
These boys are talented though i haven’t watched the current U20 play i know our youths the always talented/skillful & for years the have been untouchable in this part of Africa.Why all of a sudden we going down.S.A used to fear playing us at youth level but now the beating us easily.
Big Steve i like your Sales Principle.
Amuna Onzuna on Wed, 10th Dec 2008 10:59 AM
Too bad Guys;
Romantic Monk on Wed, 10th Dec 2008 11:02 AM
Poor finishing all the time. The moment people start getting interested or hopes build up that is when they lose. All the best next time boys.
atlanta,ga on Wed, 10th Dec 2008 11:15 AM
Lets give these kids a break,i wonder why zambian media dont report about the homeless soccer world cup zambian girls won in australia,we got something to cheer about,we world champs.u 20 sacks now.
Spaks on Wed, 10th Dec 2008 11:39 AM
atalanta, im sure we didnt know about that and hence you are our news ambassador in that lkight kindly give us details of your news. As for the youth teams indeed it has been a bad year, this scares me more to realise that we are not ready for the 2011 all Africa games, what happened to school boys internationals? i read on the article that mayuka said he loved engineering or something like that but now does not think about it but football, is this true? if so where is his manager? this is Africa, you have to have a fall back plan, look at the emmanuel Zulu’s of this world, or the injured players they are close to being destitute, i feel to have a good tree with many fruitful branches, we must make sure the roots are well kept and provided for, so its the grassroots that we need to tend to, sometime back i had enough of our failures and wished that we could seek permission from FIFA and disbanned all our teams and start from scratch, im slowly headed there mwandi, na naka failure mwe
rumor on Wed, 10th Dec 2008 11:42 AM
Mutapa to be replaced by Chris kaunda, apparently he is the best coach in Zambia, zoona ndife ma wire ku pwalala ni kwatu bena ba beula
Dissapointed on Wed, 10th Dec 2008 12:07 PM
I have always said that Z football sucks. If you follow it too much ka, you can get a heart attack. The moment you trust the team too much, thats when bafaula eehh, kaya. We need a complete overhaul gentlemen.
DaMwiinger on Wed, 10th Dec 2008 12:40 PM
Ba Chiwota, way to go man. I like this kind of progressive thinking. Some of us are not home and we can’t do what you are doing but we are sure willing to help out in whatever way we can as opposed to just being chatter boxes.
DaMwiinger on Wed, 10th Dec 2008 12:42 PM
Big up to our giilrs who won the homeless worldcup. You did us proud!!!
DaMwiinger on Wed, 10th Dec 2008 1:17 PM
I meant to say girls there.
Big Steve from SA on Wed, 10th Dec 2008 1:33 PM
Zamfoot, could you get us some sort of report on this world cup thing?
Was FAZ part of this (I doubt!!!!!!!!!) but this is amazing news, maybe one overhaul we could start with is use this team that won as our female national team hahaha!!!!!
Zamfoot anything on this good news.
Sibs on Wed, 10th Dec 2008 1:57 PM
I just read in local paper 2days ago that we had a homeless team playing soccer in a Melbourne Australia,all along i though it was some boys.
A big up to them Girls at least the did us proud as a Nation.
Seen from afar on Wed, 10th Dec 2008 3:01 PM
Well done to them, what a story. Homeless and female, no jokes please.
As for the U-20, it’s a tuff loss. Youth competitions are interesting because we can see how different they are from the professional senior tournaments. In youth tournaments, NIGERIA, Argentina, Ghana, Cameroun have all had consistent success wining Gold medals or Cups in contrast to the WC where we see the likely winners are Brazil, Italy and the other regular big players who we don’t always see in the youth competitions. I believe there is everything to play for in these competitions as the surface is more even. The qualification is not an easy battle as it is spread out and teams will fight tooth and nail to qualify as we see. If we want success, we have to access – visualize ourselves at the start and more importantly at the finish, in terms of what we need and we must be doing in order to compete in all key departments. I think the Canada squad was a great squad, but we can do it even better if lessons have been truly learned and we are willing invest necessary time and effort. Is it worth it FAZ?
Matafwali on Wed, 10th Dec 2008 5:19 PM
Congratulations to the young ladies. I had seen this story somewhere recently. All the best to them.
We have to be more consistent in these tournaments. Consistency will us a break in qualifiers as a higher seed. What was the rationale behind changing the coaching staff for the youth teams anyway? We need continuity. This is a blunder by this administration. They need to recognize this fast and put corrective measures in place to improve the game. Hire (rehire in some cases) qualified coaches and get the necessary sponsorship. The abysmal performance by the youth teams suggests these coaches were not hired on merit. I am still at a loss as to the performance of the U-20 team.
Anonymous on Wed, 10th Dec 2008 7:45 PM
We have to be more consistent in these tournaments. Consistency will us a break in qualifiers as a higher seed. What was the rationale behind changing the coaching staff for the youth teams anyway? We need continuity. This is a blunder by this administration. They need to recognize this fast and put corrective measures in place to improve the game. Hire (rehire in some cases) qualified coaches and get the necessary sponsorship. The abysmal performance by the youth teams suggests these coaches were not hired on merit. I am still at a loss as to the performance of the U-20 team.
Matafwali on Wed, 10th Dec 2008 9:01 PM
Sorry Anonymous, the second sentence should have read “Consistency will ‘help us get’ a break in qualifiers as higher seed”. I don’t understand why you reposted the entire paragraph without elaborating your concern. Please advise and I will respond in kind.
Justice Kafusha on Wed, 10th Dec 2008 9:43 PM
Matafwali brother it is better to respond to people who are not hiding than, so my advise is that ignore AA cause maybe nakolwa
Moses moyo on Wed, 10th Dec 2008 9:51 PM
Zambian players lack concetration and commitment
Matafwali on Thu, 11th Dec 2008 12:49 AM
Mwalasa ba Justice. I just experienced a momentary lapse in concentration.