By Kalumiana Kalumiana
Zambia women’s national team coach Nora Hauptle has described her team’s 3-2 loss to Thailand on Saturday at the Yongchuang four-nations women’s friendly tournament as insightful.
Hauptle and her Zambia women’s team are in China participating in a friendly tournament that includes Uzbekistan and hosts China which ends this Tuesday.
Saturday’s loss in China came in the Swiss-born coach’s third game in charge following her appointment in January when she replaced the long-serving Bruce Mwape.
Hauptle said in a post-match interview that despite the absence of key players, namely strikers Barbra Banda and Rachael Kundananji due to visa reasons, there were positives to be taken from Zambia’s performance against Thailand.
“We had a few challenges before the game in terms of our USA-based players not coming here so we gave a lot of exposure to the young players,” Hauptle said.
“We took the lead in the second half unfortunately we conceded from a set-piece on the second ball and a penalty.”
Thailand took the lead in the 36th minute through Thawanrat Promthongmee.
Rachael Nachula equalised on the stroke of halftime and then Zambia took the lead in the 60th minute through Ochumba Lubanji.
But Thailand rallied and equalised in the 70th minute through Karnjanathat Phomsri and three minutes later, Saowalak Pengngam scored the winning goal.
The result saw Hauptle suffer back-to-back losses after losing by a similar margin to Malawi in a two-match friendly series in Lusaka in February following a 2-0 victory in her debut match against the same opponent.
“So for me, it is a matter of getting a lot of information before the 2025 Women’s AFCON (in July), when we will have all our top players back,” Hauptle said.
“So we are first giving exposure to players, looking at who is the right match with which players to work well together. But I never lose energy on those who are not here but we trust and give confidence to our young players and some of them took their chances and had good exposure.”
Zambia will face Uzbekistan tomorrow morning at 09h30 in a third and fourth playoff game.
Uzbekistan lost 5-0 to China who will face Thailand in Tuesday’s final.
