Chanka Zimba’s first call-up has been mentioned elsewhere, but I think it deserves a thread of its own. It’s quite an achievement to get noticed by any country when playing in Scotland’s 3 flight.
The circumstances of tonight’s Argentina-Zambia match are somewhat bizarre, not least because it kicks off just a few hours after Zambia’s 1-0 defeat in Zimbabwe, where they seem to have fielded a young team, while the first team was in Buenos Aries.
Argentina were supposed to be in the Middle East playing the ‘Finalissima’ v Spain and then a friendly v Qatar, both cancelled for obvious reasons. So they hastily arranged a home friendly v Guatemala. After it was announced, it had to be cancelled because Guatemala would be breaching some FIFA rule about playing friendlies in different continents during the same international window.
So Argentina had to quickly find new opponents, in a week where most countries already had matches scheduled. Hence Zambia. But I’m not sure why FIFA the rule about playing in different continents doesn’t apply to Zambia - maybe it’s ok if they use completely different squads?
But here we are, and we could find ourselves waking up on April Fools Day to reports that an ICT player, who has failed to score against the likes of Cove and East Fife, and happens to be suspended here, was up against Lionel Messi and the rest of the world champions. All very strange, but good luck to him!
Chanka Zimba’s first call-up has been mentioned elsewhere, but I think it deserves a thread of its own. It’s quite an achievement to get noticed by any country when playing in Scotland’s 3 flight.
The circumstances of tonight’s Argentina-Zambia match are somewhat bizarre, not least because it kicks off just a few hours after Zambia’s 1-0 defeat in Zimbabwe, where they seem to have fielded a young team, while the first team was in Buenos Aries.
Argentina were supposed to be in the Middle East playing the ‘Finalissima’ v Spain and then a friendly v Qatar, both cancelled for obvious reasons. So they hastily arranged a home friendly v Guatemala. After it was announced, it had to be cancelled because Guatemala would be breaching some FIFA rule about playing friendlies in different continents during the same international window.
So Argentina had to quickly find new opponents, in a week where most countries already had matches scheduled. Hence Zambia. But I’m not sure why FIFA the rule about playing in different continents doesn’t apply to Zambia - maybe it’s ok if they use completely different squads?
But here we are, and we could find ourselves waking up on April Fools Day to reports that an ICT player, who has failed to score against the likes of Cove and East Fife, and happens to be suspended here, was up against Lionel Messi and the rest of the world champions. All very strange, but good luck to him!