CAF Confed Cup: Eagles fly over Musongati into the second preliminary round
Zambia’s representatives in the CAF Confederation Cup, Green Eagles qualified to the second preliminary round on Sunday following a 2-1 win over newcomers Musongati at Nkoloma Stadium.
Eagles came into the match needing only to avoid defeat to qualify to the next round having forced a 2-2 draw away in Burundi. The visitors took the lead just eleven minutes into the match thanks to a well taken free-kick by Eric Ndizeye that left Allan Chibwe in the Eagles goal with no chance.
The Kawale Boys responded well by creating several chances and only to be awarded in the 40th minute when Lineker Mwikisa scored the equalizing goal with a beautiful goal from the edge of the box. The game went into halftime with the score level at one all.
The Choma-based side started the second half with full force and managed to score a match-deciding goal in the 52nd minute via Joseph Kanema.
Green Eagles continued creating a lot of scoring chances unfortunately they were unable to score another goal. Chiyangi’s men managed to maintain the lead to end the match on 2-1 on the day and 4-3 on aggregate sealing their qualification to the second preliminary round.
After the match, Chiyangi expressed satisfaction with the result despite missing a lot of chances.
“I think what is important is that we have gone through to the next round and we have to go back and start working on our opponent that we going to play in the next round,” he said.
“It’s not a sense of worry, the only thing that we need is to keep on working with the strikers so that they concentrate more because you can’t miss such chances in games like this, we just need to keep pushing the players so that they improve.”
Chiyangi was also quick to acknowledge the ZNS command for the motivation they gave to the team before the match.
“Our commandant came to see us and did something very good for the team. We had told the players that above everything we have said, we need to honor what the commandant did to the team, no matter what we need to fight and work extra hard for sake of the commandant,” he said.
Green Eagles will now face Cotton Sport of Cameroon and Chiyangi has emphasized his players to work extra hard as they face Cotton Sport.
“We have to work extra hard and I have already told my players, we will go back and start to build on the game against Cotton, the first thing that we going to do is to try and watch them and see how Cotton Sport plays.”
Green Eagles will host Cotton Sport in the first leg either on 23 or 24 of December 2020 in Lusaka before traveling for the second leg set for 4/5th of January.