IT is not by mistake or coincidence that various stakeholders have continued to express their concern over the Chipolopolo's poor performance heading into the Morocco 2025 Africa Cup of Nations. And this is why.
The Chipolopolo has failed to muster a single win in any competitive match spanning the FIFA 2026 World Cup qualifiers, Africa Cup of Nations finals and the COSAFA tournament.
The team has endured six defeats in those last nine competitive matches including the last five in a row.
The 4-2 win over Congo Brazzaville in the FIFA 2026 World Cup qualifiers was the last time fans celebrated a victory before identical 2-1 defeats against Niger and Morocco, and the 1-0 loss to Tanzania followed (though not in that order).
At the delayed Ivory Coast 2023 AFCON finals played in 2024, the team failed to win a single match having drawn two matches (1-1) against DR Congo and Tanzania then lost 1-0 to Morocco.
The record at the COSAFA outing where a team picked by Chisi Mbewe really put an embarrassing dent with three straight defeats without even scoring a goal and wonder how the next FIFA Coca-Cola ranking will show.
Thus, with the Morocco 2025 AFCON draws conducted, there is need for the technical bench to ensure that the team act is put together for the 2012 African champions to be in a good place to take on the challenges in the qualifiers.
"We have to consider the dismal performance in the ongoing World Cup qualifiers, the last AFCON Finals and the latest COSAFA outing.
"It is important that we put our house in order before we start the qualifiers. We need the post-mortem early enough. This will help the team know what went wrong and what needs to be done to rediscover the winning mentality.
"We have to manage this crisis before the qualifiers start. Let every stakeholder play their role. It's every Zambian's dream to see the Chipolopolo winning always," these were the words of Sports Minister Elvis Nkandu.
And from the mailbag, I got a reaction from an ardent reader Francis Makasa, who is equally unimpressed with the Chipolopolo's performance and he writes; "Prior to 2016, the men's national football team (Chipolopolo) was habitually qualifying to the continental tournament (AFCON) but was narrowly missing out on World Cup qualification.
But since then, the Chipolopolo has failed to qualify to AFCON for a record consecutive three times. When the team qualified to the 2024 AFCON in Ivory Coast, it performed badly and was eliminated in the preliminary round.
The current expatriate coach (Avram Grant) has since blacked out one of the top scorers in the team who is also a natural goal scorer, Fashion Sakala. Fashion is also the third top scorer in the Saudi Arabia Pro- league that consist of world rated strikers like Ronaldo, Mitrovic, Benzema, Jota and Mane among others.
The team has since dipped in form and even lost at home to teams like Tanzania!
As If this is not enough, the locally assembled Chipolopolo was bundled out of the regional
COSAFA tournament without even scoring a goal against teams like Zimbabwe, Kenya under 23 and the minnows Comoros.
I thought the selection of players wasn't done properly. For example, the local team was devoid of good wingers like Charles Zulu, Misheck Lungu and Ackim Mumba who could have at least created some scoring opportunities.
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It must be realised that winning just like losing is habit forming. A team that is in the habit of losing loses confidence and becomes difficult to motivate.
Perhaps we are looking in wrong places for a solution since football is not only played on the pitch but also in the offices of administrators. I therefore ask the current FAZ executive committee which has done its second term and wants to go for the infamous third term.
Does it take in excess of 10 years to build a winning team?
Clearly the poor performance of Chipolopolo has happened during the reign of the current FAZ executive committee and I find it difficult to excuse them".
Thanks Makasa for the email and lets continue interacting via email on eliaschipepo@gmail.com and wishing you a wonderful sporting weekend.
