Copper Queens assistant coach Florence Mwila has attributed the team’s failure to reach the next round of the 2024 Paris Olympic Women’s Football Tournament to a lack of fighting spirit and a failure to follow instructions by the players.

Zambia bowed out of the tournament with a 4-1 defeat against Germany on Wednesday evening.

Bruce Mwape’s side were bundled out without a win following defeats of 3-0 and 6-5 to the USA and Australia, respectively.

Mwila expressed disappointment with Zambia’s performance, stating that the team had high expectations but struggled to perform.

According to her, the players were not psychologically strong enough to fight, except for a few who put up spirited individual brilliance performances.

“We haven’t performed well; we expected it to be even better than the 2021 one, looking at the quality of players we have and the experience and exposure that we now have. We should have been one of the teams that people are looking up to,” Mwila said.

“I would say the mentality for our players is that there is no fighting spirit; ou could see that once we are just scored, people get confused, players lose their positions and start playing a different formation from what you tell them.”

Search for new players to begin – Mwila

She attributed the three losses to failure to concentrate and stick to the technical bench’s game plan.

“Instructions are given from the technical bench. There’s a game plan; I don’t think you can just go into a game without a plan. There’s a plan, but the players will go and do what they want to do on the pitch regardless of the instructions that were given.”

Mwila is optimistic about the upcoming COSAFA Women’s Championship providing an opportunity for the technical bench to assess new players for upcoming major tournaments.

“Next is COSAFA, where we really need to look at the local players. We really need to start searching around for local players because we need continuation for this team,” she stated. “Some players are getting older, so we need to start bringing in new ones. We have seen some areas, obviously midfield and other departments in the team, need beefing up.”

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