‘We Are Here to Finish Off Zambia’

15 June 2011

ALGERIA Under-23 soccer team captain Mohammed Chalal has said his team will have no excuse for failing to beat Zambia this Saturday in the

London 2012 Olympic Games qualifier set for Nchanga Stadium because his team has been adequately prepared.

Chalal said Algeria should have no excuses because they have been training under similar conditions in South Africa where the team had set up a 10-day training camp ahead of arrival in Ndola tomorrow.

He told DZfootball in Johannesburg that preparations were done in the best possible conditions similar to Zambia and that his team needed to improve on the defence which saw the Lucky Msiska side creating scoring chances in the first leg.

Algeria humiliated Zambia 3-0 in the first leg away in Algiers a fortnight ago and Zambia has an uphill battle needing to score four unanswered goals to have a chance of advancing to the next stage.

“We played against a good Zambian side in the first leg but we now have to deal with the mistakes we made before the weekend match. Not everything was perfect, especially on the defensive side where we left too much space to the Zambian strikers.

We ‘ll have to deal with these little mistakes before the return game, especially since this may be more difficult than at home,” he said.

The 22-year-old striker of Greek side Panionios said the strikers and midfielders in his team have also been instructed to improve on their game and not solely put blame on the defenders.

He said the players were motivated ahead of the game because everyone wants to win the match and qualify for the Olympics and thanked the Algerian Federation for providing the best equipment during their training camp.

Asked if his team will defend the 3-0 goal advantage, Chalal said the team would try to do a bit of defending and attacking. The team would defend in the first half to gauge how the Zambians play then afterwards try to score a goal to make the work of the home team more difficult.

And coach Azeddine Ait Djouda was confident that his players would be able to finish off the task at hand when they play Zambia on Saturday.

Algeria is scheduled to arrive in Zambia tomorrow ahead of Saturday’s crucial tie against the junior Chipolopolo.

AllAfrica – All the Time