FORMER Chipolopolo coach George Lwandamina says the current national team should be maintained and nurtured as it has the potential compete on any international stage.

Lwandamina, who is currently in Tanzania with that country’s Super League giants Young Africans, said current Chipolopolo coach Wedson Nyirenda had performed well and needed to have his technical team reinforced with qualified personnel. The award-winning coach said under Nyirenda, the team was destined for greatness hence the need to maintain it.

“They come out strong and if maintained, we will be able to compete favourably in any front, though still with some areas of improving,” Lwandamina said.

“The coach [Nyirenda] has done well and he deserves better…but he needs to strengthen his bench not just people who can sing praises to him but who can disagree to agree.”

He noted that Zambia’s wingers in the 1-0 loss to Nigeria in the World Cup qualifier on Saturday did more defending than attacking.

“In that game, I don’t know what the instructions were but at the look of things in this particular game unlike the previous ones the boys in wings did a lot of defending then attacking and the few times we went forward we looked dangerous. In the previous games our attack was on the flanks where we used speed,” Lwandamina said.

He further said Nyirenda should be allowed to continue as coach, adding that there were local coaches who could assist him.

“Let’s just give him support and like I hinted, all he needs is strengthen his bench. We have so many people with successful and traceable records to supplement his effort,” said Lwandamina.

“Only problem with Africans is that we don’t want to work according to each other’s strength; all we do is get people who will be showering us with praises. Whites form strong companies according to each other’s strength and they are not better than us. It is high time we recognised that if we are to compete with them. Look at [former Chipolopolo coach Herve] Renard and Patrice [Beaumelle]; when Renard recruited Patrice, he didn’t even know him neither had they ever met before. But Renard went to the federation and asked for the best physical trainer and they chose Patrice for him and they have since formed one of the strongest items of coaching in Africa.”