Lwandamina Speaks As Zesco United Prepares For Restart

Zesco United coach George Lwandamina believes every team is heading into uncharted waters when the league restarts this weekend after they recently trooped back to full training following the four-month Covid-19 lockdown.

Team’s returned to full training on July 1 ahead of the July 18 behind-closed-doors league restart after being restricted to individual training since March.

The defending champions Zesco will resume their quest to retain the FAZ Super Division title on July 19 when they host Kansanshi Dynamos at Levy Mwanawasa Stadium in Ndola.

“It is the same everywhere when you stay out of business for four months and then you are told to start,and with the little time of preparations, it becomes a challenge,” Lwandamina said.
Lwandamina said there is no substitute for the intimacy of full team training.

“Yes, I understand that players have been training individually but a player can only do better with the coach behind him,” Lwandamina said.

“Even you yourself, if you say you are going for road-run and you plan to run for 10 Kilometers, just halfway through that distance your body will tell you to stop and if you are not strong enough, you will stop and start walking.

“And that is what actually happens to the players, they need someone to push them to go beyond the pain barrier, the body mechanism has it that not until you go beyond the pain barrier, that is when the body will be even able to compensate, and that is the fitness that is even required in our game of football.

“But it is not the case, that is how challenging it is. We are just hoping that whatever we are doing will be beneficial.

“No one knows, not even our friends in Europe, it is all experimental, they are lucky they have a lot of facilities so maybe they will eventually be able to come up with something that is tangible.”

And Lwandamina added that the provisional FIFA law of an additional two substitutes, from the standard three, during this restart period will help all teams.

“Definitely it is beneficial for all the teams. Let me just put it this way; the entire World will benefit because looking at the magnitude of the games that we will play, three substitutes will not suffice. So with the increase of two it will help, it will be better than the usual three,” Lwandamina said.

The last nine games of the 2019/2020 season have been squeezed from August 1-30 excluding the seven rescheduled matches over the coming last two weeks of July involving Zanaco, Zesco and Buildcon.

This article originally appeared on Lusaka Times