Zambia's Former Chelsea Coach Reveals Surprise CHAN 2024 Target Ahead of Meeting with Harambee Stars

While the rest of the teams at the upcoming 2024 African Nations Championships (CHAN 2024) will be looking to win the tournament, Zambia have different targets.

Zambia are among the teams that make up a strong Group A, the others being Morocco and DR Congo, who have won it twice, COSAFA champions Angola and co-hosts Kenya.

The Chipolopolo are seen as one of the lesser lights in the group and head coach Avram Grant acknowledges this fact ahead of the tournament set to take place from August 2-30 in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.

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The former Chelsea coach says for Zambia, the aim is to use CHAN to identify players who are good enough that can be integrated into the senior team, for the upcoming assignments such as World Cup qualifiers and the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations, for which they will be among the 24 teams participating later in the year in Morocco.

“CHAN is like a tool for us because, we don’t have many players playing in Europe and our main national team is composed of these local players. We have a very tough group which will help us develop them in such an environment,” Grant said as quoted by Telecomasia.net.

“I hope this competition can give us more players for the national team and more to play in Europe. We have seen many good things so far and we have a squad with a good balance between young and experienced players.

“For the young players, this is a chance to grow and mature. They still need a bit of guidance and polishing but I am sure we will achieve a good tournament with them,” added Grant, who has been in charge of Zambia since 2022.

Zambia’s best performance at CHAN was at the inaugural edition in 2009, when they finished third, after beating Senegal 2-1 at the playoff.

The Chipolopolo will begin their campaign against DR Congo on August 7 at Nyayo National Stadium in Nairobi.