admin
ZAMBIAN coach, Milutin “Micho’’ Sredojevic believes Chipolopolo would have qualified for the 2021 AFCON finals, if he was in charge of the team, at the start of the qualifiers.
The 2012 African champions were hammered 0-5, in Algeria, in the opening game of their qualifiers, before going down 1-2 at home to Zimbabwe, in a nightmarish start to their campaign.
They turned to Micho, at the same time the Warriors, who had four points at that stage, ahead of the third round of qualifiers.
While Micho helped them win, his first match in charge, with victory over Botswana, a loss to the Zebras, in the next match, derailed their campaign.
In the end, a draw against Algeria, and a 2-0 win over Zimbabwe, could only help them finish in third place, a point behind the Warriors.
“Proudly coached a great football nation Zambia Chipolopolo team,’’ Micho posted on social media, just after their win on Monday night.
“I took the job while on zero points from two matches. In the rescue mission of four matches, we earned seven deserved points. (I am) firmly convinced that if I was (in charge) from the start of the AFCON qualifiers campaign, we could have easily qualified.”
Micho also felt his side should have won against Algeria, with a disallowed late goal from Patson Daka, the difference between them going to Cameroon, next year, and staying at home.
“I need to give credit to the boys, they wanted it for Zambia, I hope you saw from their body language, from their eyes that they wanted this,” Micho told the Zambian media, after the 3-3 draw, in Lusaka.
“Our boys gave everything, unfortunately the best was not good enough on the day and we ran out of time, otherwise we could have won the game.
“We outplayed the Algerians but this was not enough as we failed to outscore them, we need to tighten the back and not concede.’’
Daka said their focus should now be on trying to qualify for the World Cup, for the first time, in their history.
“Despite us winning, it is a very emotional day for us in that we could not go to the Africa Cup,’’ he said on Monday night.
“It is one thing that we were looking forward to but, unfortunately, that was not the plan from God, we just must accept what has happened.
“We have shown that we did not just play around but we came to give our best for our country. We played as a team, at the end of the day, we got a result which was important for our confidence going forward.
“From the word go we have been looking forward to the World Cup qualifiers, today’s game was part of the process, the start of the process, we made sure that today’s game is going to give us direction in the World Cup qualifiers going forward.’’ — Sports Reporter/FAZ.
Online Reporter