Congo Brazzaville coach wary of Zambia but not under pressure

By Jane Mwemba | September 4, 2019

The Quest to qualify for The Egypt U-23 AFCON takes center stage this afternoon as the Zambia U-23 national team will be hosting the Red Devils of Congo Brazzaville in the first leg at National Heroes Stadium in Lusaka.

Congo Brazzaville head Coach Jean Elie Ngoya expects a tough encounter after having followed The Zambian team closely in the previous round of the qualifiers against Malawi.

“Expecting this game to be tough because personally, I did follow them when they were against Malawi and also in the U-20 so it already shows that am expecting a very tough game,” he said.

“The Zambian team has been progressing gradually to where it is but as for Congo Brazzaville we are still figuring ourselves and are in need of creating a strong team, ” he added.

Coach Elie Ngoya told the ZamFoot Crew that despite playing away from home his side is not panicking and will take this game as it comes.

“We are not under any pressure am a professional Coach and I do follow all the activities of the team, looking at the way we eliminated Burundi that is already an achievement and even if we are knocked out at this stage as a professional I will not mind but we can not allow it to happen,”he said.

He further added that the postponement of the game has helped his side to tighten loose ends and gave them more time to prepare Adequately.

“Yes it has an advantage for me that time I was just building the team and the team was not going to perform as expected but this has given us the opportunity to prepare the team adequately it is for this reason that tomorrow’s game will be tough because being prepared and they have players who can handle the situation in tomorrow’s game,” he said.

The winner in this two-legged fixture will qualify to the Egypt U-23 AFCON scheduled to start in November this year.

2019 U23 AFCON Qualifiers


Zambia vs Congo Brazzaville


Time: 18:00hrs


Venue: Heroes Stadium