Zambia Under-17 Women’s National Team head coach Carol Kanyemba says the team’s determination to return to the World Cup was the driving force to record a back-to-back qualification.

The Copper Princesses beat Benin 4-1 away in a match played at Stade de Kegue in Lomé, Togo, on Saturday.

Zambia overcame Benin 6-2 on aggregate to clinch one of the available spots at the FIFA Under-17 Women’s Cup. They will join host Morocco, Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Cameroon.

Speaking after the match, Kanyemba hailed the team’s strong mentality and resilience in the second leg against Benin.

Kanyemba says the plan heading into the match was to increase the advantage by scoring more goals.

“Our plan was not to concede, but errors in football are very normal. We made an error which allowed us to concede, but my area of concentration even after we played at home was to work on our finishing because we created a lot of chances and failed to convert them, so we have been working on that and also the defence.”

She adds, “So our strongest area was the attitude. We told them to concentrate and be focused and add value to their CV by returning to the World Cup.”

Kanyemba, becomes the first Zambian coach to qualify a team for back-to-back FIFA World Cup tournaments.

“I want to advise female coaches out there to believe in themselves and know that they too can make it. We are just setting the trend,” she stated.

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