IT was an exciting experience for Zambian football last year when all national teams qualified to their respective African championships.
That remarkable performance by the women and all men age-group teams seemed like a rebirth of the local sport.
Earlier last year, we saw our Under-17 women team make history by featuring at the FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup finals in Costa Rica where Albert Kachinga’s players bowed out with heads high despite losing twice.
The Zambia Under-17 women team managed to beat hosts, Costa Rica before their home crowd despite earlier losing to Venezuela and Italy in Group A based in the capital, San Jose.
Next up was the senior women national team that qualified to the TN Mobile 9th African Women Championship in Namibia.
It was another first for Zambian football as the women team coached by then Charles Bwale were making a debut at the continental showpiece.
But it was not surprising that this team was equally knocked out in the first round, looking at the preparations and the fact that we don’t have any serious women football structures in the country.
Then came the ‘almighty’ Chipolopolo making their 18th appearance at the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) this year which Equatorial Guinea hosted at the last minute after the pulling out of Morocco.
Under the tutelage of Honour Janza, the senior men’s team we were told had prepared adequately for the 2015 AFCON finals despite playing only one friendly against South Africa.
With most of the senior players, who won Zambia the historic 2012 AFCON title ignored for this year’s assignment, Janza was not too ambitious about the 2015 event, stating that his goal was to rebuild the team for the future.
Just like Janza’s modest goal, Zambia got ejected in the first round after drawing with DR Congo and Cape Verde and losing another Group B match to Tunisia.
The Zambia Under-17 squad showed a lot of promise in the qualifiers and managed to seal a memorable berth at the Niger 2015 Africa Junior Championship.
Despite being in camp for a lengthy period, Chris Kaunda’s team could not get past the group stage and returned home after just three matches.
Hector Chilombo’s Under-20 squad also made it to the Senegal 2015 African Youth Championship but just like other local teams the fate was the same.
It beats logic to understand why our teams are just good at qualifying but perform poorly at the final tournaments.
Maybe our preparations are not adequate?
For example, all the national teams have been struggling to have more than two quality friendly matches before heading to the final competitions.
On the other side, one need to sympathise with FAZ who are really struggling to sponsor the women and all-age group men’s teams as Government and the corporate world at the moment only support the senior men’s squad – the Chipolopolo.
This should act as a wakeup call for FAZ to devise other means of attracting sponsors for these vulnerable teams especially the men’s juniors which act as a nursery for the Chipolopolo.
For now I can only wish Fighton Simukonda’s Under-23 squad the best of luck in the 2015 All Africa Games qualifiers with the first assignment being against Nigeria. Let’s get interactive on malungaf@gmail.com