Zambia are sweating on the fitness of two of their key players after both players pulled out of their morning training session in Abuja at the astro turf of the FIFA goal project, package B of the National Stadium.
The Chipolopolo had their first training session in Abuja before heading to Uyo, the venue of Saturday’s game against the Super Eagles of Nigeria in the race to qualify for the 2018 World Cup in Russia.
Already Zambia have been hard hit by injury in the build up to the game and it got worse for them today when first choice goalkeeper Kennedy Mweene left the training session few minutes after it started, clutching onto his left thigh in agony.
Mweene apparently injured himself when he made a full length dive to save a shot during the team shooting practices, and the Mamelodi Sundowns shot stopper who is only returning from injury had to watch the rest of the session from the sidelines.
The rave of the moment in Zambian football Patson Daka was next to depart the session halfway as the Red Bull Salzburg forward suffered what looked like a knee injury shortly after the team started light jogging.
Daka was examined by the team doctor, and after a while had to resort to training alone as he did not look entirely comfortable to take part in the full scale contact training the rest of the team had.
The degree of the injury suffered by the duo is still unknown as no member of the Chipolopolo team was willing to discuss the issue after training.
Ade Emmanuel
