Zambia defeated Seychelles 4-2 on Tuesday afternoon to wrap up their 2023 COSAFA Group Stage campaign, but coach Moses Sichone was left disappointed.
Goals from Albert Kangwanda, Killian Kanguluma, Golden Mashata, and Frederick Mulambia were enough for Zambia to grab all three points.
However, just as things appeared to be going well for the defending champions, who needed to avoid conceding goals in order to advance to the semifinals as best group runners-up, Seychelles scored twice in the closing 10 minutes due to defensive woes.
The defensive blunder by the Chipolopolo has not pleased Sichone who described the goals conceded as “silly.”
“I was happy when we scored 4-0, and then after that, I don’t know what went wrong,” he said in a post-match interview. “We made a few changes; we thought we should bring some fresh guys who didn’t play a lot of minutes, but we could see that when you have a lot of players who don’t have experience, you will start experiencing such things.”
Sichone added: “I must say I am quite disappointed because of the attitude. I mean, if you score four goals, the game is done. You need to concentrate. It’s just unfortunate that each game we are conceding silly goals.”
Players’ attitudes disappoint sichone
The coach also described most of his players’ overall performances as disappointing. He claimed that the majority of them had failed to demonstrate why they should be considered for the main team in the future.
“We tried to give everyone a chance, and in a tournament like this, they were supposed to show the country that they are ready and want to put pressure on those guys that are playing on the main team, but it’s unfortunate.”
Zambia finished second in Group B with 6 points while Malawi won the group with 9 points to progress to the semifinals.
The Chipolopolo Boys’ qualification for the semis will now be determined by the results of other groups as only one team is progressing from each of the three groups with two more going through as best runners-up.
Zambia lost 1-0 to Malawi and defeated Comoros 2-1 before beating Seychelles to finish second.
