By SHAMAOMA MUSONDA –

HECTOR Chilombo says he will not quit as Zambia Under-20 soccer team coach.
Chilombo said he has not even harboured any thoughts of leaving his position despite the team’s early elimination from the ongoing 2015 Africa Youth Championship in Senegal.
He said this in an interview following reports suggesting that he had quit his position after Zambia’s early exit from the continental youth championship stating that he was firmly in charge of the team.
Chilombo said what he was looking at a long-term developmental programme for Zambian junior football.
“All those reports are not true, I am still coach and I will remain Zambia Under-20 coach until my employers FAZ decide otherwise. The last time we spoke, we were talking about a long-term programme for the development of youth football,” he said.
He also pushed in an unreserved apology to fans over the manner the team got booted out of the tournament especially following the 5-2 loss to South Africa in the formality and last group game.
Chilombo expressed confidence in the junior team which before losing to South Africa, had narrowly lost to Mali 1-0 and Ghana 2-1, saying they were a good side that would soon bring pride to the country.
“These are very good players, a rare collection and in two to three years, they will form the core of the senior national team. We have some players who are already at the senior team but the rest of the group will get there soon.
So the boys should not be vilified but encouraged and I would like to say to the Zambian football fans just how sorry we are as a technical bench and players about the early exit and especially the manner in which we lost to South Africa,” he said.
He said the early exit was unexpected and it shocked even the opponents because they looked at Zambia as the favourite to lift the cup. Chilombo said it was more important to pick out lessons from such a happening.
Chilombo said on a coaching aspect, he was a better person after the various interactions with the many coaches who were at the continental youth tournament and that it was the same for the players.
“Of course there were negatives but there were positives as well. What we should do now is pull the negatives into the positives and improve our team,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Sports Council of Zambia (SCZ) has described the performance of the Chipolopolo, Under-17 and 20 sides as disastrous.
Kalenga expressed sadness with the performance of the three national teams and that the Football Association of Zambia (FAZ) should sit down and do a post-mortem to find the cause to avoid a reoccurrence in future.
“We are heartbroken with the below par performance of our three football teams. Is it the administrators, coaches or players who are failing to deliver? Or maybe the players are not adequately prepared.
There is no way all the three teams can be booted out in preliminary stages, we are greatly concerned,” he said.