Zambia Football Federation boss Andrew Kamanga has hailed the Chipolopolo for their efforts to lift a seventh Cosafa Cu title after defeating Lesotho 1-0 in the final at King Zwelithini Stadium in Durban on Sunday.
The Chipolopolo Boys, who started their campaign with a 1-0 defeat against Malawi, successfully defended the title they won in 2022 after Moyela Lilamba scored the winning goal in the 77th minute to settle the evenly contested affair.
In the process, Chipolopolo became the most successful football country in Southern Africa. Zambia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe are the only countries to win back-to-back Cosafa Cup titles since its inception in 1997. The first country to do so was Zambia in 1998 when they defended their inaugural title, followed by South Africa in 2008.
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“A seventh heaven salutation to our football family from the coastal city of Durban where the Chipolopolo freshly retained the Cosafa crown. It is such a great milestone for the Chipolopolo to have lifted the Cosafa for the seventh time to become the record winners of the 26-year-old regional crown. Zambia broke away from Zimbabwe who have won it six times while South Africa are five-time champions,” Kamanga said in a statement from FAZ media.
“For the record, Zambia were champions in 1997, 1998, 2006, 2013, 2019, 2022, and 2023, We are allowed as a country to take a moment and enjoy some measure of bragging rights as regional champions however, we will not lose sight of the fact the Cosafa is an opportunity to expose and grow talent. Our technical bench was able to hand more than half the team a debut national team appearance through the Cosafa.”
The statement added: “The bigger picture for us was to give the top performers of our under-23 national team and outstanding league players an opportunity to test themselves on a regional platform. We were also using this platform as a chance to afford some of the best promising local coaches an opportunity to hone their coaching skills on the international stage. We had national team assistant coach Moses Sichone assisted by Numba Mumamba, Mwenya Chipepo, Masautso Tembo, and Davies Phiri on this assignment which was a show of confidence in our local resource as they continue to build their coaching credentials.
“Naturally, Chipolopolo coach Avram Grant was working in the background with the technical bench to ensure that there was alignment with the long-term national team vision for Zambia national teams. The next assignment for the local Chipolopolo guns is the African Nations Championship (Chan) qualifiers at in a fortnight. The Cosafa has been such a huge platform to prepare for the Chan assignment at the month-end.”
Zambia are are also the first Southern African country to win ten key accolades. They have now won seven Cosafa Cups and two Cecafa crowns in addition to the Afcon title in 2012 and have ten titles, one more than South Africa and Zimbabwe, both of whom have seven.