Zambia under-17 coach Dennis Makinka anticipates a tough encounter against Honduras in the team’s second Group H match at the 2025 Qatar FIFA U-17 World Cup, where a win will send them to the knockout stage.
The junior Chipolopolo are second in Group H with three points, at par with Brazil, who handed tomorrow’s opponent a 7–0 thrashing on the opening day.
In an interview, Makinka is taking a cautious approach, warning that his team cannot afford to underrate Honduras tomorrow because they are wounded from an embarrassing loss.
“A team that is coming from a loss is very dangerous because, you know, when you lose, you realise the many mistakes that you make, and correcting them is easy. But when you win, because of the excitement and all of that, you tend to forget, or maybe you don’t see some of the mistakes that you make. So it’s difficult to play a team that is coming from a loss.
“But again, if you plan well, it’s also easy because their morale is not very high and we are coming from a win. We have high morale and also we’ve prepared very well for this game,” he said.
Makinka on psychological preparedness
He said his bench has been working hard to ensure the players remain grounded despite the win over Indonesia.
“We’ve been psyching the boys. We’ve been having meetings, especially about the mental aspects and psychological issues. We have been talking about them so that we prepare the boys physically and mentally, especially, you know, coming from a win.
“These are kids; they get overexcited. So we’ve been trying to psych them to focus and not to plateau but to start looking forward to the next game,” he said.
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