By MICHAEL MIYOBA
ZAMBIA Under-17 women’s coach Kaluba Kangwa says his team’s focus will shift to next year’s World Cup qualifiers after scooping the 2021 Cosafa women’s junior championship at Region Five games in Maseru.
Speaking after guiding the Junior Copper Queens to a 4-0 thrashing of Botswana in the final played at Setsoto Stadium on Monday, Kangwa said the technical bench would not go to sleep after winning the title which had eluded Zambia for over nine years.
Kangwa said the Under-17 technical bench would go to all clubs in all provinces to identity more young players who can participate in the World Cup qualifiers set for next year.
“We are going back to our usual plan because we have different activities in our plan that we want to achieve and our next plan is to see to it that we start preparing for the World Cup qualifiers next year and we are not going to sleep during the festive season.
“We will go flat out into different communities to scout for more talent in readiness for more programmes ahead,” Kangwa said.
The Bauleni United Sports Academy coach said he was happy to have finally won the regional title after losing last year’s final to South Africa.
He said winning the Cosafa under-17 in Lesotho was a big motivation to the young’s girls who were competing in a major tournament for the first time in their careers.
“I’m really excited and I’m so happy together with our technical staff we have worked extremely hard for a long time and to be given the opportunity to win the trophy and to present it to our country’s leaders is so unique and special. We are humbled.
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“The victory is so special to the girls and so special to women’s football and so special to the Football Association of Zambia.
“It is so special to the parents the teachers the fans who love women’s football.”
Kangwa hailed sponsors of women’s football teams in Zambia for contributing to the growth of women’s football in Zambia.
“To all sponsors of deferent teams, deferent groups which is very important, we would like to appreciate them for the support because without their support women’s football wouldn’t have reached this level but you can see the growth of women’s football in Zambia it’s really growing bigger and bigger and we want to be achieving a lot of things such as getting the medals and cups as well,” Kangwa said.
He also hailed Cosafa for improving the officiating part of the game which was a problem in the previous edition of the tournament where Zambia missed a chance to win the youth title following some referring errors.
