Rainford Kalaba on Friday evening final joined the Zambia Under 23 national team as it winds up its three-week training camp in Kitwe.
The Zesco United midfielder arrived on the eve of the squads’ departure for Lusaka on Sunday ahead of Wednesdays Olympic Games qualifying match against Malawi to be played at Nkoloma stadium.
Kalaba took part in Saturday’s training after arriving in camp early on Friday evening from Ndola.
He joins the squad a day after Peter Kaumba announced his 19-man squad.
Kaumba is certain to drop at least three players to make room for two foreign based players who are expected to join the team within the next 24 hours.
The two players expected are striker Given Singuluma and defender Davies Nkausu of South African division 2 league club’s Bay United and University of Pretoria FC respectively.
Meanwhile Afrisports and Zambia schools international utility player Stophira Nsunzu has recovered from his knee injury sustained last Wednesday in a friendly against Power Dynamos.
Nsunzu took part in Saturday’s training with the rest of his team mates but Power midfielder Chanda Mwaba pulled out midway through the morning session with an ankle sprain.
The squad leaves for Lusaka early Sunday morning and is expected to play its final training match tomorrow afternoon at Nkoloma against Red Arrows.
Iam not a soocer fun as such but when it comes to issues of soccer at national level involing the Zambia National team I would rather not be left out . I only have one concern for the fallen soccer standards in our country : lack of a long term plan by the goverment to revamp soccer standards.
It is unfortunate that we Zambians do not learn from history. There is no doubt that Zambia managed to build one of the strongest teams in Africa in the 1980’s and 90’s because it had strong football nurseries in primary schools which where in almost all schools around the country. However, this is not the case anymore. Football in primary schools is a thing of the past. Football grounds have been turned into residential plots which is a very sad development . I remember during my primary school days in the late 1970’s and the 80’s every saturdy was reserved for inter schools football competion. One wonders what went wrong, this thing has not been sustained in primary schools nor in our secondary school. If it is there it is not as effective as it used to be in those days.
If you talk about all those prominent players Zambia has ever produced there were all products of Zambia schools foot ball league . If Zambia has a dream to be Africa’s soccer Champions one day , what she needs is long term plan – reintroduce soccer in all Zambian goverment primary shools because in these primary school there is another great Kalu not exposed to soccer whose talent is just going to waste. Whether we like it or not it starts from there. Prove me right or wrong it will be difficult to build a world class team without this long term plan. After all Soccer is not just a game any more but a career and in most schools in Europe it a subject in classroom . If our goverment is really serious about soccer standards in Zambia let them take this seriously.
Francis Ng’andwe
Canada, Edmonton