Is Oswald Mutapa the chosen one?

By Aaron Mubanga Jnr | July 6, 2020

The Copper Bullets assistant coach could be in the process of being prepared to take over the Chipolopolo top job in the future.

Mutapa who is nicknamed as Mourinho is rated among the top five coaches in the country with a brilliant record at the junior national team level.

Now it seems he could be in the process of being prepared for the ultimate challenge. FAZ President Andrew Kamanga hinted on this during a press briefing over the weekend in Lusaka.

Kamanga said the decision to attach, Mutapa to the National team was a deliberate one so that a Zambian can take over once Micho calls it quits with the 2012 AFCON winners.

“We want to make sure that at the end of the day we have a strong cadre of local coaches and remember Government has always told us that they prefer that the national team is handled by a local coach and we agree. But we can only get to that point if we enough coaches who can take care of all the national teams,” he said.

“That’s why we have deliberately attached coach Oswald Mutapa to understudy coach Milutin Sredojeviç so that by the time coach Micho is leaving we will have our Zambians taking over from that point,” he added.

In 2019 Mutapa won 2 COSAFA titles in a year making him the first coach ever to do so in the history of COSAFA tournaments.

Mutapa led the Zambia Under-17 at the Cosafa U17 Championship to victory in Malawi to win his first trophy in 2019 and then guided the Under 20 to the Cosafa U17 Championship on home soil to claim his regional double.

While the Copper Bullets headed to North Africa for friendly games, Mutapa temporarily took charge of the friendly match against Namibia with a locally assembled side which beat the brave Warriors in Windhoek to claim the 2019, Dr. Geingob Cup. That’s a treble for Junior.