Kennedy Musonda of Tanzania’s Young Africans and Canada-based defender Aime Mabika will miss the crucial Africa Cup of Nations Group H qualifier match against Ivory Coast this Saturday.
The two were named in Avram Grant’s squad, which has been in camp in South Africa for the past week.
Musonda was in action on Monday for his club. He scored the game-winning goal as Yanga defeated Azam 1-0 to win the Azam Sports Federation Cup.
Aime Mabika, on the other hand, was issued a Zambian passport a week ago but was unable to join the squad in time.
Meanwhile, in an interview with the Zambia Daily Mail yesterday, FAZ communications manager Sydney Mungala confirmed that the two will not join the team.
Mungala revealed that the time Grant had given all of the players to join camp had elapsed.
“He [Musonda] is not coming; he had a game on Monday, which meant that his arrival will fall outside the period that the technical bench had planned for all the players to be in camp. So everyone should have arrived,” the Zambia Daily Mail. quoted Mungala as saying.
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Zambia hosts the Elephants at the Levy Mwanawansa Stadium. They might secure their qualification for the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations should they pick up a positive result.
The Chipolopolo are in second place in Group H, ahead of Comoros and Lesotho. Zambia has nine points, while Comoros and Lesotho have three and one point, respectively.
A win or draw against the Ivory Coast would be enough to qualify the Chipolopolo for the Cup of Nations.
