U-23 Must Prepare for War in Ghana -Zambia Times

IF the FAZ is serious about winning next week's decisive Athens 2004 Olympics qualifying match in Ghana, there are some things it cannot afford to take for granted.

That the game is going to be difficult is a foregone conclusion. The Ghanaians are not level with us at the top of the group for nothing.

They outplayed us at Independence stadium last December and they will consider the drawn match as two points lost rather than one gained.

There is no doubt either that Zambia has improved markedly since that result, as proved by the three straight victories they have reeled off after that lustreless showing.

But the team needs to be reminded the encounter in Ghana is going to be one of those games where what goes on off the pitch before the game could prove more critical than what goes on that patch of green.

There will be mind games from the minute the team lands in Accra and even more than that as the senior squad found out in Benin.

Not that Ghanaians, as passionate as they can get about their football, have any history of abusing visiting Zambian teams, but the FAZ can take nothing for granted when so much is at stake.

With the two sides on level pegging at 10 points apiece going into the March 27 game, the contest is a winner-take-all affair and Ghana, who, like Zambia suffered the embarrassment of failing to make this year's Africa Cup of Nations finals in Tunisia, are desperate for some success.

Nor have they forgotten that the last time the two sides met in this competition, Zambia stole the ticket to the South Korean Olympics held in Seoul. So it is pay-back time for the Black Stars who will have their fanatical fans behind them in sweltering, humid Kumasi where the game will be played.

I guess this is the price Zambia has to pay for failing to beat Ghana in Lusaka but having to win in Ghana should inspire rather than dispirit the players.

Between them, FAZ vice-president Kalusha Bwalya who is also national teams technical director, under 23 technical advisor Ben Bamfuchile and coach Peter Kaumba, have more than enough experience of the sort of tricks that West and North African teams can get up to just to win their home games.

Kalusha once explained that as a player preparing for one of the crucial qualifying matches in Cameroun under skipper Ashols Melu, there was molestation of the worst kind ever he had ever experienced in his football career.

He said harassment started from the airport, to the "hotel" into the dressing room where renown player Roger Milla refused to show his identification document (ID) saying his face and name were proof enough that his was Roger Milla and teased Melu asking if he had never heard of the name Milla before in his life.

On the pitch Kalusha says it was worse when a plane deliberately flew over the stadium in support of the team and the stadium burst out into cheers of their team, leaving the Zambian team just a little confused.

Whenever a Zambian player touched the ball, fans would boo and jeer as one.

I can give a detailed account of the happenings in Benin because I was on the ground and the memories of that experience are still vivid in my mind.

Let me just refresh your minds, lest you have forgotten. The Beninois had already planned how to receive the Zambian team from the airport to the hotel.

The hooligans had lined up the streets of the airport all the way to the ramshackle Vickinfel hotel (the so-called five star hotel) in the middle of a market in a noisy neighbourhood next to a disco house with no security at all.

Ghana like Benin is a motor-cycle infested country, so the Zambians should brace themselves for the noise and harassment from this class of people too.

I am not pre-judging Ghana, neither am I instilling fear in the minds of the players, I am merely pyscheing them up for the kind of environment they should expect.

FAZ has planned to camp the team in South Africa and fly to Ghana the night before the game to give the team as little chance of being disturbed as possible.

After that experience in Benin, I would suggest the team camps in Nigerian or Burkina Faso who are Ghana's neighbours, but I would prefer Nigeria where Zambia has an embassy so that they just charter a plane on the day of the match to get into Kumasi -play the game and get out so that they are least affected by any acts of hostility.

Air fares in West Africa are generally cheap and I am sure FAZ with the help of the High Commission in Nigeria, can afford to charter a plane from Nigeria into Kumasi and back to Nigeria immediately after the match.

Should they decide to fly to Ghana from South Africa a day or so before the match, I suggest they carry their own mineral water and food.

I and some members of the team that travelled to Benin had an experience where after we had drank mineral water served to us we could barely keep our eyes open!

And a message to the minister of Sport, Reverend Gladys Nyirongo, please ensure that whichever or whoever accountant or official you assign for this trip should have ready money for any eventualities because this is a planned for trip and therefore arrangements should be made way in time.

for the High Commission in South Africa and Nigeria to solve and please note that Yellow fever books are a must! Zambians are tired of excuses.

I am sure that the team manager and all those travelling with the team are aware that this is a must when you travel to any West African country to avoid being quarantined.

And to both FAZ and Government please ensure that all those necessities are handy so that there is nothing like 'one person has remained behind and he will catch the next flight to South Africa or he will find us at the airport, in Nigeria or indeed Kumasi itself' and that person ends up arriving on the day of the match, worse still after the match has been played.

There is need for better preparations for such assignments, decent preparations, that is.