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Caf Confederations Cup preview: Nkana vs San Pedro

caf-confederations-cup-preview-nkana-vs-san-pedro

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By Bwezani Mbewe

Nkana Vs FC San Pedro

Nkana Stadium

15:00hrs

The focus this Saturday on the Zambian football scene this afternoon is on the ground the passionate Wusakile fans dubbed “Pachilata” that Nkana Stadium

There has been a quite a hype in the social circles by fans across the Football divide to bring the house down in Kitwe. It’s been an awesome experience for many ardent soccer fans to have ramped up to encourage every Jim and Gill to come and support Nkana. Who host Ivorian side San Pedro in the first leg of Confederation Cup pre group stage qualifiers.

From a punditry point this Nkana team is not the side of 2014, nor even the team of 2016, but they do have a knack of not losing. Since being roundly outplayed and making too many errors in the first half of the 2018 season , they have not lost at home for the 2018 second half of the season in all competitions .

The last- 32 tie against Simba in the CAF Champions League, though suggested a surprising vulnerability, one that makes it hard to understand how they have conceded very few goals in the second half of 2018 season in the league.

Nkana has generally been very good in 2018 and boosted by arrival of Chisamba Lungu who still remains a fine distributor of the ball and reader of the game but has lost a little pace and he needs a very good Harrison Chisala on the day as a central midfield partner in a 4-4-2 formation though it sometimes looks like the formation has not offered him the protection he perhaps needs.

The sight of Chisala tearing through open spaces in the first leg of the Simba match should worry any opponent.

Set against that is the ruthlessness of Walter Bwalya, who has to improve if they are to come out of this with a better result that will give them a good cushion.

The suggestion is that Nkana are better playing on the break than when they have to take the game to an opponent.

Their defence is one of the best from the time Musa Muhammad and Richard Ocran joined the team.

With that said the big loss against FC San Pedro is that Mussa is missing after accumulating two yellow cards already.

Nkana needs a win and a comfortable one for that matter to take to Ivory Coast if they are to make it to the group stages.

They have a team to do that but they need not to underate FC San Pedro – but this will be a huge ask for Bestone Chambeshi who has no choice but to deliver.

Its a must win game.

#FillupChilata

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