‘Sate Sate’ exclusion justified
RONALD “Sate Sate” Kampamba is a great player but this is not a club but a national team where we select players based on their perfor-mance during training, Zambia National Soccer team coach Wedson Nyirenda has said. On Saturday last week Nyirenda dropped Kampamba from the final member squad which is scheduled to take part in the Championship of African Nations (CHAN) tournament which kicks off on January 13 in Morocco.And asked on why he decided to leave out the Nkana lethal man from the final Chipolopolo squad, Nyirenda said that he chose the final team on merit based on their performance in camp. Speaking in an interview with Daily Nation Sports before the Chipolopolo’s departure for South Africa yesterday, Nyirenda noted that there was need for Kampamba to remain focused as he is a fantastic player with potential to represent the nation in future assign-ments. “People always complain. Had we picked Kampamba leaving out some players we are going with, the same people would have complained. But this is a national team not a club and we choose players based on the way they may have performed in camp. “We have a lot of good players who were left out of the final squad because we couldn’t carry everyone but “Sate Sate” is a fantastic player. We have seen players being dropped from the national team and still make a return after some time, therefore he just has to remain focused,” Nyirenda said. Meanwhile Nyirenda confirmed that the Chipolopolo boys would wrap up their CHAN preps in South Africa with a clash with South African Premier Soccer League giants Orlando Pirates in a friendly fixture today. Nyirenda noted that he was not worried of how the team would perform at the CHAN tournament despite not having played preparatory matches with strong opponents. He said that the team was ready for the tournament which features players who play in their domestic leagues. “We are leaving for South Africa today (yesterday) where we will have a chance to play a friendly fixture with Orlando Pirates. The match is scheduled to kick off at 11: 30 Central African time and we thank the Orlando Pirates man-agement for making it possible for us to test ourselves before the tournament. “We have prepared well for the CHAN tournament. I know a lot of people are worried that we wouldn’t com-pete because of not having played competitive friendly fixtures but we just have to be positive as we have a ca-pable team,” Nyirenda said.The Chipolopolo boys are in Group B of the 2018 CHAN tournament which runs from January 13 to Feb-ruary 14. Nyirenda’s boys will do battle with group B opponents Namibia, Uganda and Ivory Coast and will face the Cranes of Uganda on January 14 in their open-ing match. Zambia will be making its third appearance at the championship after finishing third in 2009 and in 2016 where they were eliminated at the quarterfinal stage.