Nkausu gives strong advice to Chambeshi and Numba

by Staff Reporter

Thursday Jul 29, 2021. 12:00

Ex-SuperSport United defender and 2012 AFCON winner Davies Nkausu has welcomed the appointment of the local coaching duo of Beston Chambeshi and Mumamba Numba to the Chipolopolo bench but also has some strong words of advice for the new Zambia bosses.

FAZ has handed Nkana coach Chambeshi to manage Chipolopolo while his Zesco United counterpart Numba will be his assistant.

The duo will handle Chipolopolo in an interim capacity for three months from match-day one-to-four of the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 Group B qualifiers.

They have been appointed to fill the void left by the Serbian-born Milutin ‘Micho’ Sredojevic who stepped down by mutual consent on July 17, 2021 following a modest seventeen months in charge.

Chambeshi and Numba’s first assignment will be in early September in two Qatar Group B qualifying dates away to Mauritania in Nouakchott and at home against Tunisia in Ndola.

Equatorial Guinea are Chipolopolo’s other Qatar qualifiers opponents and Zambia will face them in a Group B doubleheader this November starting away in Bata before hosting them five days later in Lusaka.

Nkausu has implored Chambeshi and Numba to select the team on merit and be very pragmatic considering the delicate phase Zambian football is currently in following three successive failures to secure AFCON qualification.

“There is nothing wrong with building a team but build the national team with senior players to combine them with the youngsters because the senior players will make sure the youngsters are grounded and disciplined and that they work. But when you drop the senior players, who do you think the youngsters are going to be talking to?” Nkausu said.

“If a local coach is called upon to the national team, go and be fair with every player in the camp.

“Give them a chance, let them prove themselves on the soccer field. If he fails on the soccer field, cool, drop him, but before he even proves himself, you drop him, that is wrong.

“Our local coach must also learn to understand that when you are coaching the national team, it is not a club and when you are at the national team don’t hold grudges with players but treat each and every player the same.

“That is my take on the local coaches because they are all talented and they are all educated.

“It is good that they have called them but now they must prove to us that the national team can win and can qualify for something.”