By RONALD CHAWE –
NEWLY appointed Buildcon football club Italian coach Italian Arena Gugliermo has highlighted his and the club’s desire to play continental football next season.
In an interview at the Trade Fair Grounds after the team’s trainingsession yesterday, the Italian said his mission was to make sure Buildcon this year makes it into the continental football spot and later become one of the top clubs in the country.
The 44-year-old, who replaced Spanish coach Jadrane Hicham,said since the club was young and ambitious, he would try to improve a lot of things on the pitch.
He said his objective was clear to everyone at Buildcon and that since the side was young with strong and ambitions, he would work to achieve a lot provided he had enough time.
Gugliermo added that with time, Buildcon would become a permanent feature in continental football by being one of the top clubs in Zambia.
He said the club was headed the right direction by combining experienced and young from both the local and foreign pools and that he needed few months to build a strong team.
The Ndola based out-fit finished ninth in its first season in the top flight.
“We need to try, every time and do our best. We have targets and we cannot accept any bad indiscipline in the group. We all have to do our part, from the coaches, the players and administrators. That how football functions, it’s like mathematics and results then will come,” he said.
He said with such principals and time, Buildcon will achieve more than it did last season when it finished ninth with 55 points, 15 off a continental football place.
Gugliermo claimed to know a lot about African football and Zambian in particular adding he was relishing playing big teams like their Ndola rival Zesco United.
The Italian said while most Africa leagues were good most talented players lack technical skill and sometimes proper fitness levels.
He said Zambia has always had good and strong players as seen when winning the Africa Cup under Hervé Renard and that he was currently following the CHAN tournament in Morocco.
Gugliermo is the immediate past coach for Dubai CSC, a UAE first divisionside has managed ASFA Yennenga of Burkina Faso, Tonnerre D’Abomey FC ofBenin, COD Meknès and Ittihad Khemisset of Morocco.
Others are Étoile FC ofSingapore, CR Belouizdad of Algeria, Al-Urooba Club of the United ArabEmirates and Fanja SC of Oman, Hangzhou Greentown of China in ChineseSuper League.