Many reasons to travel for Cosafa

Legend . . . Godfrey Chitalu

Lusaka, Ndola, Kabwe and Kitwe have been confirmed as host cities for the Cosafa Cup playing in Zambia from July 6-21. The tournament this year will have Cecafa guests in Kenya and Tanzania.

The two east African nations will join Botswana, Namibia, Lesotho, Swaziland, Mauritius and Seychelles in the group phase.

Hosts Zambia and higher ranked South Africa, Angola, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Malawi have been given a bye to the knockout round.

All group phase matches which will be played from July 6-11 will be hosted in Lusaka and Kabwe. The two cities will also host matches at the quarterfinal knockout stage which will be played as double headers at Nkoloma (Lusaka) and Godfrey Chitalu (Kabwe) stadiums on July 13 and 14.

Copperbelt towns of Kitwe and Ndola will only host knockout matches from the quarterfinal and semifinal stages, from July 16.

Why I am writing this? Well, apart from the fact draw for the 2013 Cosafa Cup takes place tomorrow (May 3) in Lusaka on Friday, I want to travel to the tournament. This especially so for the matches in Kitwe and Ndola.

The Copperbelt has fabled stories about football in the southern region. Apart from historically providing Zambia with its finest talent since the 1960s, the region has more legends in other spheres of life which one would need to supple in ones lifetime.

It is for this reason that the trip to Zambia will not be about the beautiful game alone but all that is beautiful about the beauty of that country – and the flow of the most urban river in Africa, the Kafue River. Apart from the copper, this majestic river is like a thread holding the Copperbelt together, linking its major towns as if it were a highway!

Footballwise, no name rises higher than that of Godfrey Chitalu. Though Kabwe has renamed its main stadium after this legend, Chitalu was however born in the Copperbelt town of Luanshya. It is also the home town of Orlando Pirates striker and Zambian international Collins Mbesuma.

Chitalu holds his Zambian national team scoring record and was voted footballer of the year in that country five times. He was just 45 when he died in the infamous air crash off Gabon in April 27, 1993. He had just been named national coach that year, after retiring from an 11-year spell as a Kabwe Warriors player, which included a highly disputed but widely acclaimed 107 goals in one season in 1972.

This and many other stories about Zambia are already giving me sleepless nights thinking about July.

Am I going to resign or take unpaid leave to realize the dream? Time will tell, but this is one trip that cannot be missed for all good reasons imaginable!

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Rest in peace Zet, thanks for the good times

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