Mighty Warriors aim at Zambia

31 May, 2015 - 00:05 0 Views

The Sunday Mail

Melody Gwenyambira – Sports Reporter

THE Mighty Warriors have been urged to be aggressive when they step onto Rufaro’s artificial turf to face Zambia for the second leg in a Rio 2016 Olympic Games qualifier this afternoon.

A 1-0 win will see Zimbabwe qualifying for the next round.

Zimbabwe, having played second fiddle to Shepolopolo over the years, need to overcome a 1-2 deficit after falling away in Lusaka last weekend.

First half goals from Hellen Mubanga and Barbara Banda gave the hosts their goals, while Rudo Neshamba chipped in with what turned out to be a crucial away goal.

“The players need to be aggressive in this game. The Zambians are not talented like us. They are not tactically sound and not good technically. We are going to attack and make sure that we win,” said assistant coach Johannes Chikaola.

In a bid to get some firepower, the technical team has called up Black Rhinos utility player Eunice Chibanda.

The former Young Mighty Warriors captain has been used as a defender before, but this time she will be doing business as a striker as the hosts seek to unlock a Zambian side that is likely to “park the bus.”

“We know that Zambia might come and defend and we have not put all our eggs in one basket. We have gone through the game plan over and over again and the players have it firmly in their heads.

“In the first leg we missed a lot of chances and our reaction to that was to go back to the drawing board and work on our shooting.

“We need to utilise the chances that we are going to get. We have to show hunger and urgency in everything we do,” said Chikaola.

Zambia’s assistant coach Kape Sali insists the drama that saw the Mighty Warriors questioning Banda’s gender before the first leg affected his side’s performance, hence their narrow 2-1 victory.

“That affected the performance of my team. However, we are looking past that and are sure we can win this game,” he said.

Football Association of Zambia vice-president Boniface Mwamelo believes Zimbabwe’s move to question the physically imposing Banda’s gender was a mind game.

“As an association, we are very disappointed with Zimbabwe in the way that they took away the basic tenets of fair play,” Mwamelo was quoted as saying by the Zambian Post.

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