Zambia held their first training session back home on Tuesday afternoon in Lusaka ahead of Saturday’s 2018 CHAN first round,final leg qualifier against Swaziland at National Heroes Stadium.
Chipolopolo returned home on Monday evening from Swaziland just 24 hours after beating their hosts’ 4-0 in a first leg match at Lombanda.
All but one player were in training on Tuesday and missing was ex-Zambia Under-20 captain and defender Solomon Sakala who is reportedly preparing for a prospective move to Portugal.
“We have released Solomon.He has a problem to attend to at his club,” Zambia coach Wedson Nyirenda said.
“We have called back Moses Nyondo so that we can have an even number players for training.”
Nkana defender Nyondo,like Sakala,was a member of the Zambia Under-20 team at the 2017 FIFA U20 World Cup that reached the quarterfinals in South Korea.
Meanwhile,Nyirenda has warned warned that the final leg training would not be a holiday just because of the 4-0 away win.
“It is not training with a jovial mood.It will be intense,” Nyirenda warned.
“They have to know that we are not here to joke. We have had such cases in the past where we have had an advantage of one or two goals and we start relaxing and we have negative result.”
Victory on Saturday will see Zambia advance to the final qualifying stage in August where South Africa are the potential opponents away in the first leg on August 12 and the home leg will follow on August 19.
South Africa beat Botswana 2-0 away on July 15 and host The Zebras on July 22 at Moruleng Stadium.
Winner over both legs will qualify to the final tournament to be hosted by Kenya in January.