By Kalumiana Kalumiana
TP Mazembe coach Slimane Raho has given an appraisal of Nkana’s rebuilding project after playing them in a closed-door friendly match on Tuesday at Nkana Stadium in Kitwe.
The DR Congo giants beat Nkana 3-1 in the friendly, which was one of three friendlies penned for during their ongoing pre-season camp in Zambia, which began on August 18.
Mazembe have set up their pre-season training base in Kitwe.
Raho told Nkana media in a post-match interview that the Nkana project looked promising.
“We are very happy to be here, with the good hospitality, good people and very good atmosphere here at Nkana Stadium. Nkana has a very good team; it’s very compact and plays very good football. It was difficult to break,” Raho said.
”The players are aggressive and young, which is good for a project, but they need to work on finishing because finishing is important. Chances created should end up in goals; otherwise, you get punished like they did, but I see a team that can perform well if they coordinate and work on small mistakes.”
The friendly was Mazembe’s second friendly game since arriving in Kitwe after beating Red Arrows 2-0 on Sunday at Levy Mwanawasa Stadium in Ndola.
”They (Nkana) gave us a good game and hopefully we can continue with this collaboration between TP and Nkana and one day, we will come again to play them,” Raho said.
Nkana has injected low-profile young blood into the team with a dozen youthful players following some high-profile off-season departures.
The major departures include veterans Idris Mbombo, Dieugo Apanane and Jacob Ngulube, while promising goalkeeper Patrick Chooma returned to FC Leopards after the end of his loan deal.
Eight players have come into the Kitwe giants, while three have been promoted from the Nkana academy.
Meanwhile, Nkana’s friendly against Mazembe is one of the major highlights of their pre-season itinerary, which earlier saw them spend the first fortnight of August in Botswana, where they camped in Francistown and participated in the Tati River Cup where they finished runners-up.
