Rainford Kalaba today virtually became the first Zambia player to be assured of a seat on the plane to Equatorial Guinea despite Zambia falling 2-0 away in a friendly to Nigeria.
The little man amongst giants today in Kaduna produced a 90 minutes of sparkling football against eventual pragmatic victors Nigeria.
The former Afrisports midfielder stole the show from the future of Nigerian football in Ahmed Musa who midway through the second half felt the darker side of Kalaba’s defensive skill with a stomp on his thigh.
Meanwhile, Musa gave Joseph Musonda and Nyambe Mulenga a torrid time on the left and the two were not the only culprits at the back.
The entire defence was almost unwatchable and Renard has some serious work to do before playing Senegal on January 21 in Malabo.
Back in action, Musa showed why he is one of Africa’s hottest young properties when he drew the ball back for Kalu Uche to slam in the ball with Nigeria’s opening goal on 9 minutes.
For Zambia in the first half, Collins Mbesuma had a good chance saved in the 22nd minute from a glasscutter free-kick.
Mweene was later called to save Zambia from conceding a second goal on 36th minute with a dramatic one-hand-save for striker Emmanuel Emenike overhead flick.
Two minutes later, Kalaba shot flashed across the face of goal while Katongo blasted high and over, the latter with a seemingly easy shot infront of an open goal as Zambia finished the first half strongly.
The second half was all Zambia but even with a change of goalkeepers for Nigeria with Eneyema replaced by Austin Adjei, Renard ‘s men could not just find their way through.
James Chamanga who replaced Mbesuma in the 45th minute had a glorious chance in the 50th minute when Adjei saved his rebound, and again, Kalaba was the architect.
Davies Nkausu had a good chance in the 82nd minute when he whipped in a shot from outside the box.
Nigeria however were down but not out and on 90 minutes Ike Uche punished Nkausu and Stophilla Sunzu slipping the ball through them before beating Mweene to complete an undeserved home win.
Why didnt he score? I mean Rainford Kalaba.Malawians say ‘Bola nzigoli!!’
I said it Zambia is going nowhere with Galu @ the helm of FAZ & Renard on the coaching bench. Zwaa Galu
Aisha mundipe bbola ndume beam-iam not ashamed that was the best i wanted coz now we know our weackness come on kalu give renwa good time 4 training use your influence we camp in europe not 4 two days but one month,do it before a div one chairperson says hes better than u
Nigeria, eh? Why am I not surprised at the out come? Zambia always plays well, but loses
Chipolopolo has a lot of work to do in the striking force and defence.Kennedy Mweene also has a tendency of moving far from the goal line and as result ,Zambia is in danger of conceeding stupid goals.The striking force is able to create scoring chances but can not take them.If Zambia had taken at least half of the scoring cahnces ,the score line would have been Nigeria -1,Zambia-5.
The toughest game is with Senegal.Their strikers are plying their trades in France,Germany and the Barclays league- Demba Ba of Newcastle United.Radical changes are needed if Zambia has to progress further in this tournament.
Mulifipuba. you’ll always be saying we played well and lost! Awe twanaka. It’s better you give me that money you use to pay players I spend on my girlfriend. Atase!!!
U FOOLZ m******mwe. we played well. again?? u will always say that shit me am tired. Just give me that money when i come back i will develop basketball other than wasting money on these dunderheaded pigs with no f*** talent. baaaaaaaasket.
Pity I didn’t see the game but am afraid “played well” is just not good enough anymore!! We need to do better, not in the future, but right now. We need to continue playing well and winning, not just playing well.
There’s no honour & dignity in losing: It was legendary radio soccer commentator that coined the phrase”we lost with dignity & honour”, but I beg to differ. Today’s loss, in a amtch we dominated with over 70% possession was so painful, especially after changing half the team during the break! What do coaches teach our players if not to score goals? These boys’ talent comes from the street & what the coach should impart in them are; co-ordination with team mates, fitness(both physical & mental), discipline on & off pitch, converting set pieces, fitness, etc. We need to break this historical myth of certain countries ever dominating us, yet we’re so good! Today’s Nigerian side like that of Angola AFCON 2010 is one of the WORST SUPER EAGLE SIDE!
SORRY, I meant “… legendary radio soccer commentator DENNIS LIWEWE….”
MY OBSERVATIONS:
(1) Our defence is seriosly porous, especially on the two flanks – Where is Mbola? (2) Kennedy Mweene cost us this game due to his misadventure, was caught in wrong positions in both instances of Nigeria scoring. Please remind him he’s not the captain – he also spends too much time with the ball while the opponents confront him. Who’s our No.2 choice Keeper? (3) Katongo brothers & Musonda of Golden Arrows are finished. Chris is still hard working though not skillful any longer, Felix unfit & playful with the ball.
Shining and playing well not good enough! Football is not gymnastics, you need to score goals!
HERVE RENARD no good, bring back DARIO BONETTI!
Much as we are licking wounds because of the humbling defeat, i am glad that our weaknesses have been exposed and i hope that the Coach, players and other stakeholders alike would give the time, seriousness and resources the preparations for the 2012 Africa Cup the attention it deserves.
Go Chipolopolo! Go!
Very good point
The results of such friendly matches are very important for imposing a psychological edge and fear in your opponents for the actual tournament. So, although they are practise matches, the coach must start with his best combination, which to me appears to be the one he used in the second half, but with Kalaba as part. Two nice set pieces in scoring range and corners were wasted. Renard what are you teaching these guys? At Konkola Stadium there was a poster that said “TO WIN IS TO SCORE”, so it does not matter how much CHUSHA you do to the other side WHAT MATTERS IS SCORING!! AND NAIJA DID IT, THOUGH WE WERE BETTER!
WE REQUEST THE PRESIDENT OF THE PEOPLE H.E. MCS TO DISSOLVE THE CHIPOLOPOLO FOOTBALL TEAM AND APPOINT ANOTHER ONE IMMEDIATELY. HE CANNOT TOLERATE THIS NONSENSE OF PLAYING WELL BUT LOOSING BADLY!!!! WHERE IS H.E. PLEASE ACT NOW OR NEVER!!!
Ya ! Too bad..time the dudes went back to the drawing board.Ala bane tukasebana ku Afurika cup natina.Anyway good luck next time.
Renard mwaice, what about Botswana. Are they better than us now? Listen you chap, Sakuwaha is very good. Put Cliff there as well. Goal-keeper aleke ukusolwela bola mu chipanda. I don’t trust you Renard. I am just supporting you because of my national team.
Yaba! Ba Zambia ba these days, what can I say…
There  is  no hope. Botswana put up a better display than Zambia. Bonetti’s side was scoring. With this Renard we are back to the blunt frontline this Frenchman presided over in his first spell. Zambians; do not expect anything in Guinea. Zambia  is coming home after the first round
i am very confident that Zambia will win the cup if they continue playing well and Kalaba shining, BUT scoring NOTHING. They will certainly win if they continue scoring nothing.
Too bad  try again boys.
I don’t see why this Frenchman had to come back. The blunt frontline is a familiar feature of his previous spell with Chipolopolo. In this game Zambia were scared of keeping possession inside the Nigerian half and used tired and predictable attacking tactics. Iam not having any hopes at these AFCONs. Zambia will be very good losers hence, something we are very familiar with. Bonetti was much better.
Zamba shall win the next fifteen matches and will say what the soothsayers will say … the Zambia boys/men are very hot … congrat Nigeria for the goals and so shall we score .. thank God it was not a CAN match … note next fifteen days …GOD bless the team and Zambia, Chipolopolo needs to win and cause the noise of the PF election results aftermath midnight celebrations … we want the Cup the LORD grant us our desire INJMN …Amen
I think Mweene needs replacement
sorry dear ones i meant next fifteen matches not days …shalom
Mween is still okey just need to be even a few icnhes more alert, we have a serious team my country men .. CAN 2012 here we come, sorry Senegal, Sudan and Libya, come 21 Jan, 2012 we start slaughtering you one by one till the Cup and then we keep the mood of winning …
zambia is always a good team, but with the problems amoung our strikers. why cant we work on it before its too late! i recall the previous game against libya at nchanga stadium……… anyway let lenard also work on our weak defence, not forgeting fwayo in front as well, where is he?. work hard chipolopolo boys.
Sata must go!! We were winning when RB was in office.
Renard and his rubbish! We need goals!!!
Could we support womens soccer. decades of tax payers money being wasted, re-hired a second rate coach.
Zambian team should call this guy DAVIES MUKUPA who is in china now , they guy is very good both scoring and defending. check this guy than wasting money like that these foolz let them come back with their oooo in their pockets
Up Super Eagles, zambia better luck next time but not against Nigeria.
:d:d:d\:d/\:d/\:d/
1) even if zambia brought slr alex to play nigeria a week before the game wewould have still struggled to score because even our league has the same problem, i think the tesm played well n with more of such friendlies renard will do well
2) calling kalu as galu is very sad, this man did a lot for this nation n deserves respect. he is human n has made his mistakes but lets offer constructive criticism. and what have u urself down for the country
whatever you armchair critics say IFWE NI ZAMBIA CHABE!!!!!!! FIPOLOPOLO Fikali! i am proud of our team win or lose because i am proud to be Zambian and everything that represents zambia is GOOD. Its too bad i left india 6 years ago, i would have loved to see the boys play India at margao in Goa, the only state in india that loves black people and hero worships black players. What an atmosphere that will be. Win or lose, joy or heartbreak i will still hold you down. You are doing a service for your country and unlike most of these i.d.i.o.t.s. who blog here and have never been selected for anything, you are patriots! GO ZAMBIA!!!!!!!!!
The is a very big line between a win and a loss. Playing entertaining football does not count on FIFA world rankings.
We need a coach who is good at motivating the players and one good at coaching strikers. Our strikers are just not up to the notch when on the pitch. I have never had respect for Renard and once again Iam being proven right. The guy is a physical trainer. He has no tactics. Abash Renard abash!
Kalaba shines but you lost ! What a zoo !!
Galu ni Galu. Renard s game no purpose and vision. DB was far much better than this ***** they brought back. these chaps are just here to make fake trips with Galu nd syphone money. DB never went SA for training nd has a better record than this ***** RH. when you say Kalu did a lot for this country did he bring bread and batter on your table? he was just playing football chapwa not even paying tax. I can assure everyone that with such display if it was Partrick Phiri, Zambia in such a game could have scored 5 goals ask the Brazilian Caros Alterto Pelera Former SA coach. Fred and the Post deal with Galu please twachula pafula…………..
The problems of footbal pa Zed are deep rooted. You will trace the deep to Footbal House.
(1) Discipline or replace Mweene for carelessness & pomp (2) Practise scoring from set pieces – free kicks & corners are always scoring opportunities. For a good team 1 in every 3 free-kicks around the 18 area and 1 in every corner should result in a goal! (3) Tighten the defence – there’s trouble on the flanks (4) Employ a team psycologist to train our boys how to believe in themselves and not punic when they are trailing – they keep making desperate and premature attempts at goal (5) Our boys always concede when they’re having a streak of attacks on the opponent we get carried away and leave the tail unattended (6) The coach must know his best combination, both in the strike force and defence. THIS IS WHAT WILL WIN US MATCHES!
Seriously failed the exam but your hand writing was excellent!!!
Zambia have a good team and the day they are scoring, we can beat anyone….a fair analysis is that we need to improve especially the movement of our strikers in the final third..also defending was not good, we a natural left back to play instead of Joseph Musonda, our midfield was far more superior than the Nigerian, interms of play the difference was there to see, the other team has qualified the other has not…if you do not play good football in a friendly game then you can not play good football anywhere….Senegal will be a different opponent…but we should be able to beat Libya and Equitorial Guinea….Zambia were a better side and Nigeria at times looke like they were playing away…
Dario played ugly but won………………….Lenadi plays well but loses. So who is the best?
#35 ulimbwa iwe
Nigeria where just more prepared than Zambia, they played with Botswana last week. Zambia, the coach was trying different players. Its not that Zambia was over played.
imwe 2-0 is ok they had a sleepless nite thinkn wat next
I fear for the worst at the AFCON in EqatoGuin/Gabon come January 21 and let us wait and see what happenz to the coaching bench then, watch this space.
Zambia lacks a gifted and technically wise attacking midfielder. There is no one that takes charge of the midfield and that’s always our downfall. Our strikers are poor because they don’t get enough supplies from midfield. It maybe too late to groom such a player, but we definitely need a playmaker. Renard dumped us, I wonder why we re-hired this fool. But thanks to SS we watched the game.
The Chipolopolo where Good ,Nigeria almost Changed the entire team at second half.Nyambe and francis Kasond were always caught on a wrong truck,surely how do you put a striker behind when you know you are a defender.Sunzu was good but he lacked someone to help him in that position ,he did some good saves.The other problem i observed was with the goal Keeper,the Guy kept on Leaving his goal post in short he was to adventurous.Felix was not suppose to play that game.Chris only showed up in the second half but the guy also he seem to have loosing his steam.Any short that was a good friendly match and i hope to watch that kind of friendly matches.We should go west for friendly matches not with look south.South Africa failed to make it dispite the noise they claim to be the supper powers of so
The defence was pathetic and a lot needs to be done as the team is in the doldrums. The Super Eagles were held to a goalless draw by The Zebras over the weekend and if i ask where does it leave our soccer? My opinion is that Botswana is far much better than us. Poor passes and inaccuracy cost as the game at Ahmedu Bello Stadium in Kaduna, surely allowing two goals to a weak team like Nigeria is something else. Psychology should be the main area of concern, hence our players seem to fear when they face some teams. Football is nowadays a free flowing game and you really have to believe in yourself as you play the game. They is a huge task for Renard as the team’s performance is at all time low. I believe in our coach and i urge my fellow fans to give him support as Bonneti didn’t do much.
Go zambia go ,we shall win the cup.
Whats the use of playing an impressive game when you dont score? pathetic looosers! better you play badly but score at the end of it all.!
cross the half way line Kalaba was the only player alive. Kennedy & Katongo killed the game for Zambia. if only we can stop playing names we can do better. the new guys did well in this game. its like our players forget that this is the job they have chosen. this is why they are receiving less from the budget coz they dont work hard to contribute to GDP.
Am very disappointed with tha waste of tax payers money by tha zambia national soccer team… wat hz bewicthd us kanshi? everytime we have to we played well even if we lost.
We need to strengthen our central midfield and defence….in tha interest of the zambian players like andrew sinkala and Moses Sichone should be recalled to the team to add value and experience.We are tired of using same players who have never made us proud.is this the team we are taking ku africa cup…if so then we are better not going thr.Sunzu,Nyambe,nJovu should never be on our team list…ifyabupuba…u guys…do our players even watch European football?..awe they irritate me
Thumbs up to Kalaba for the outstanding performance. Felix will regain his previous form, Chris should up his game. Joseph, Nyambe, Francis and Sunzu were suspects and those high flying tackles are not needed at all. The game was too big for Njovu and was really not seen in the middle of the park.
The game was a disaster. Zambian football has serious problems that most pipo want to ignore. Firstly, kick out Kalusha & his clowns at Footbal House. They’re in a wrong place. Those are not Administrators. They’ve even organised a “Chipolopolo tour” to INDIA for nxt week. What football is in India surely.
Im a strong critic of Renard. He has no track record of any achievement in football. His only motive is to market himself at AFCON 2012, raise his price tag & disappear. President Sata needs to constitute a Commission of Inquiry to look into our problems with football.
Pipo the Team played well, that is no doubt it was like a final…..I was impressed with the commitment,thumps up to Kalaba……Please Give Renard a chance….Kalu has done alot for this nation,he deserves respect…If he was playing he could have scored…our strikers do not have passion to score…maybe glooming Kalaba or # 9,he will cause penalties and free kicks that way you have chances if the opponents are strong:we missed Mbola and Chintu these are experienced guys….Any way Zambia has NO players of Kalu calibre,Charles Musonda,Beston,Fighton..so this is what we have for now..Please leave Kalu and Football House out of this…YOU HAVE NO players In Europe..Shamme.
Our boys lacked confidence, their passes were not accurate and released the ball just to get rid of it. Please change tactics, long passes and running with the ball unnecessarily is outdated tactic.
#59 Nigeria are several classes above Zambia. Zambians are so small compared to the well fed Nigerians. Until the average size of the Zambian youth catches up with that of the average West African, I think we can forget about football. How can our boys compete against the likes of Yaya Toure and Didier Drogba? I say school feeding programmes should be introduced in Zambia. Kids are malnourished. School feeding will achive two things: improve school results and the health of our youth – the future sports men of the nation. The EU helped to introduce this in Kenya but those corrupt Kenya officials were just stole the money meant for the programme. Africa, what a shame! West Africans are well fed. That is why you do not hear about famines in that region.
even though we lost the game i think kalaba played very well for us. The defense was very weak in the first half but improved in the second, it is really a blessing to have kalaba in the team and by the way we need to see more of c.mulenga because the guy is very good.
:( i am not really a fanatic of soccer, but football is all about winning and not having a good ball possession………… work out things on the pitch and filter out the weakest links like f. katongo, c. katongo, kasonde, e. mayuka, k. mwene……….. we need a trophy at the end of time. go kalaba go chipolopolo! go mbesuma and go c. mulenga! you are the future chipolopolo zambia. this is a friendly warning to faz… because when king cobra haunts you i swear you guys will be no more!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
we needs change in even in football pls,because the guys are doing very bad.
Zambians should not be angry, afterall we defeated you with only two goals from two brothers Ike uche and Kalu Uche, not five goals. Up Super Eagles of Nigeria and Arsenal fc of Engand. Everybody say yo yo yo. Let me go and urinate i will come back.
#16, how can they go back to the drawing board when the board is not there?? Chamanga, the Katongo brothers, Mbesuma and one or two more players, are all finished. We need to re-create a new team around Kalaba and Mayukwa, we need a new drawing board.
#55 Fedelis – You are talking nonsense. Sinkala and Sichone are in there mid if not late 30’s and you expect them to add value to the team. Be objective Mambala !
Nangu tuwine nagu tuluse tulifipolopolo
All dogs saying zambia played shhhht ,you are not zambians.Even if you were listening to radio commentry ,you would grab the story.Ball possession was 61% for zambia for the entire 90 minutes.We know we can hold the ball like brazilians now we just need to slot the ball in the net .ZAMBIA WILL BE IN FINALS
Oversea #35 iwe c.h.i.k.a.l.a what’s your problem? Have you looked at zambia’s ranking on FIBA. Are you playing professional basketball where you are or just talking out of your a.s.s.? What has that got to do with me appreciating the national team I so dearly love. I played basketball at junior as well as senior national team level with zero funding but the pride I felt was immense. I don’t criticize our team as we have not played football friendlies against any formidable sides. Nigeria are far superior so they were favourites but zambia gained tactical experience. So the next time you feel like calling me a dog you little Wang.ker ,do it face to face. Meanwhile go zambia and fcuk overseas 45!
Stun your call chea colour. Your father ndiye Galu
Our problem is still in hands.We shud look at individual briliance and systems.Ask each and every person ,who is who ?there we can come up with something .
Using local coaches ,we tried and failed (senior team and under 23).Rena is stil our coach.
Zambia shall never win any competition for as long as there is no grass root level football in this country!!!
kalaba played horrible!!!
zambia played horrible!!!
people are saying, “despite zambia’s loss we played well” WERE YOU HIGH WHEN YOU WERE WATCHING THE GAME!!!!
wake up and smell the coffee something has to be done ba sata we need your help here!! we need to be able to feel proud and let us be a power house aswell!!!! gone are the days when we destroyed Italy now they would hammer us 20-0 or 20-1 even if we fieled the whole team, subs, and technical bench!!! another thing how embarassing is it to have the subs n tech team sitting in plastic chairs in the sun WTH!!!
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