Zambia friendly shifted to tomorrow
Football Association of Zambia (FAZ) has shifted the international friendly between Malawi’s Flames and Chipolopo, which was scheduled for this afternoon at Nkoloma Stadium, in Lusaka, to tomorrow.
FAZ made the sudden change yesterday so that the game should be played on Thursday, March 12, which is Youth Day public holiday in Zambia.
Football Association of Malawi (FAM) confirmed the development yesterday.
“It seems they overlooked the fact that March 12 is a public holiday in Zambia and once they realised that, they decided to shift the game. We got the communication on the change on Tuesday,” said FAM competitions and communication director Gomezgani Zakazaka.
The development means Malawi will return home Friday instead of Thursday as previously planned.
This will affect the Flames technical panel’s programme which wanted to release the players on Thursday for the FAM Charity Shield to be played this weekend.
“We will release the players who will take part in the charity shield on Friday and regroup on Sunday for the preparations of the Burkina Faso match,” he said.
The Flames will use the friendly to prepare for the back-to-back 2021 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers against Burkina Faso on March 26 away to Ouagadougou and March 31 at Kamuzu Stadium in Blantyre.
The friendly will be newly-appointed Zambia coach Milutin ‘Micho’ Sredojevic’s first match following his appointment in January.
The former Ugandan coach is expected to use the match in preparation for a three-match friendly tour of East Africa that will see Zambia play Uganda and Mali in a three-nation cup in Kampala on March 17 and March 19, respectively.
