Zambia want to settle score

Zimbabwe won 1-0 in 2005 and 3-1 in 2009 and four years later at the 45 000-seat Levy Mwanawasa Stadium in mining city Ndola they clash again.
Home advantage stamps Zambia as favourites to exact revenge and equal the record four southern Africa national team championship titles of Zimbabwe.

France-born Zambia coach Herve Renard is upbeat after knockout victories over Mozambique and South Africa earned a final spot.
“South Africa were on my ‘hit list’ and now it is the turn of Zimbabwe,” said the man who guided Zambia to a shock 2012 Africa Cup of Nations title.

“We want revenge for those two finals losses against Zimbabwe — there are old scores that need to be settled.
“When a team reaches a final they can have only one aim and that is to go all the way and lift the trophy.

“My players have captured the hearts of the Zambian people by reaching the final and it is up to them to finish the job.”
Renard will expect more from heavily built strikers Festus Mbewe and Bornwell Mwape as Zambia needed penalties to oust South Africa after a 0-0 draw. Neither seriously threatened to score against Bafana Bafana (The Boys) during 120 minutes before the Copper Bullets converted all five spot kicks.

There is also room for improvement in a Bronson Chama-marshalled rearguard rescued twice by the woodwork and once by woeful South African finishing. The Cup final marks the end of a short spell coaching the Warriors for German Klaus Dieter Pagels.

He achieved his first victory when Tendai Ndoro bagged a midweek brace as Zimbabwe fought back to edge Lesotho 2-1 in the first semi-final.
But the soft-spoken tactician, who cuts a composed figure as he walks up and down his touchline technical area, admits there is much room for improvement.

“We will have to perform much better against Zambia —our football was not that impressive even though we won.
“Things went better in the second half against Lesotho because we were more organised,” said a coach returning home to teach football at schools level.

Leading Zimbabwe league scorer Ndoro was a pheripheral figure during his debut last weekend in a shootout success over Malawi.
But he repaid the faith of Pagels by scoring twice within 11 minutes to end the giantkilling run of Lesotho.

Playmaker Ronald Chitiyo is widely considered the most exciting footballer in Zimbabwe today and has used the Cosafa Cup stage to exhibit many skills.
In a curtain-raiser to the final, South Africa should have a distinct fitness advantage when they face Lesotho for third place. It will be the third outing in seven days for Bafana, but the sixth in 13 for a Lesotho side that has exceeded expectations. — AFP.