Cheering for the underdogs

So, after weeks of football we’re down to just two teams – Ivory Coast and Zambia – who will contest the final of the Africa Cup of Nations on Sunday.

Obviously, not too many surprises about the Ivorians seeing off Mali in the one semifinal, although 1-0 was not very convincing. Regardless, I’m sure they don’t mind, as all that counts is getting to the final and having a chance to compete for the title. At least it was a quality goal from Gervinho that earned Ivory Coast a place in the final. Certainly, they will be overwhelming favourites in Libreville, particularly with their big-name stars, Didier Drogba, Gervinho, the Toure brothers, Didier Zokora, Salomon Kalou and Emmanuel Eboue.

But, what about Zambia? The whole SuperSport squad is currently in camp in Stellenbosch as we prepare for the resumption of the Absa Premiership next week and we all congregated to watch the Zambians take on Ghana in the other semifinal. As stated in my previous column, Ghana were the favourites, but that clearly counted for nothing as the Zambians took them on as one cohesive unit. What a story! And now they get to compete for the top prize – not too far from where 25 Zambian players and officials were killed in a plane crash back in 1993. It clearly must be some kind of destiny.

What was nice about our time watching that semifinal was that we were all supporting Zambia, because we all know players in their team, with a number of them turning out for local PSL teams. There are the likes of defender Davies Nkausu, who plays for us, Collins Mbesuma and Joseph Musondo of Golden Arrows, Clifford Mulenga of Bloem Celtic, Isaac Chansa of Orlando Pirates, goalkeeper Kennedy Mweene and Noah Chivuta of Free State Stars, Kampamba Chintu of Wits and Chris Katongo, who I played in Germany with.

More on Mweene – he made a great penalty save from Asamoah Gyan and it was such an important save to make fairly early in the game, because, if you go one-down against a team like Ghana it’s tough to battle back as the underdogs. I don’t think there was anything particularly special about the Zambian tactical approach, but what I can say is that they were incredibly disciplined, compact and everyone did their job. They attacked as a unit, they defended as a unit, and they didn’t give the ball away cheaply.

When you do things in numbers, you can solve a lot of problems. In saying that, Ghana dominated possession, but found it difficult to break down what was a very organised Zambian unit. Herve Renard has really done a great job with Zambia, because it appears that he’s got everyone motivated and playing for each other and you just can’t put a price on that. I know that there’s no substitute for a football team playing with that kind of confidence and trust in each other. It really is a remarkable achievement for Zambia. They are a team with very few international stars – in fact, most of them play here in South Africa and that’s why we all wish them success.

Now it’s the final on Sunday and you have a classic case of the big favourites against the underdogs. Like I’ve said before, anything can happen. Tactically, I don’t think Zambia need to change much – they just need to stay compact and disciplined. Ivory Coast will want to dominate the game and that could happen, but the Zambians can always hit them on the counter-attack, or with a piece of individual brilliance. Most importantly, though, they need to enjoy the occasion. You can be certain that we’ll all be cheering for Zambia. That’s nothing against Ivory Coast – we just have stronger ties to the Zambian team and with Bafana Bafana failing to qualify, it’s the closest we’ll get to supporting a team that is close to us.

Go Zambia!