Dennis Makinka, Zambia U17 boys national team head coach, was satisfied with the team’s performance, despite their exit at the U17 FIFA World Cup.

Zambia’s journey at the U17 FIFA World Cup came to an end on Friday after suffering a 3-1 defeat against Mali in the round of 32.

The junior Chipolopolo boys bowed out of the competition, having gone unbeaten in the group stage of the competition.

The Dennis Makinka-drilled side beat Indonesia 3-1, then hammered Honduras 5-2, before they played out to a 1-1 stalemate against Brazil.

Makinka told FAZ media in an interview that he was proud of the boys’ performance.

“I want to appreciate the boys for the courage that they showed, resilience, and all the efforts that they gave. It’s top-top. I think looking at the performance, it’s something that obviously we didn’t expect to get, but when they came, they kept believing from the friendlies that we played that we were improving every day,” Makinka said.

“It was a good performance” – Makinka.

“Overall I can say it was a very good performance at the tournament. Mostly it’s the character you see; their self-belief and ball retention were something remarkable,” he added.

“When you look at the way we defended—the defenders had improved so much, they understood what we were looking for. The balancing in defense and just the organization defensively was so superb because we improved so much,” he said.

“If you look at the friendlies we played back in Zambia, we conceded so many goals, but with time we improved, and as every game came, we improved, though we made a few errors, but overall there was massive improvement,” concluded the coach.

It was the Junior Chipolopolo boys first appearance at the U17 FIFA World Cup.

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