THE national soccer team’s dream to make a maiden appearance at the World Cup starts this weekend when the Herve Renard drilled lads lock horns with the Pharaohs of Egypt in Cairo in a joint Africa/World Cup qualifying game.

This game is critical for Zambia and the lads know and that is why they should not even relax. The adage that the first cut is the deepest should definitely be applied in this must-win match because this game will determine Zambia’s chances of qualifying to the World Cup.

The other teams in Group C are Algeria and Rwanda.

Didier Drogba’s agent insists his client would be willing to discuss a possible contract extension at Chelsea. Thierno Seydi claims the Ivorian striker is prepared to snub a host of big-money offers from across Europe in order to remain at Stamford Bridge.

The 30-year-old had appeared destined to leave the Blues this summer after falling out of favour under Luiz Felipe Scolari’s regime. However, he has been brought back into the fold by interim boss Guus Hiddink and has been in breathtaking form of late.

FOR a long time now Zambia has waited in vain to discover a sensational scoring machine at the highest level. The big question is; when will one be found? Or to put it the other way round, has one been found already? Following Zanaco’s Given Singuluma’s recent good scoring form for the Zambia ‘B’ team or CHAN (African Nations Championship) squad, almost everyone has gone ballistic that Singuluma has given us that ray of hope, that he is most certainly the newly-discovered goal-getter messiah. I would rather play the game of wait and see and for good reasons too; I have profusely watched Zambian football since 1970 to date.

FAZ/KCM premier league side Nakambala Leopards says it should not be underrated or regarded as underdogs by any team in the premier league.Commenting on the team’s away draw with Magnificent Kabwe Warriors in the season opener, club secretary Obert Habasimbi said in an interview that football has now changed and there was nothing like underdogs. “We should not be regarded as underdogs or being underrated in the premier league because we are also capable of playing well. This is not our first time that we are playing in the league competition. This is our second time,” he said.Habasimbi attributed the team’s away draw to Warriors to hard work and coordination among the players and the technical bench.“We forced an away draw because our boys played well and the technical bench did all it could,” he added. And on the engagement of new assistant coach Ernest Kofi who is a Brazilian, Habasimbi said that there was need to give him time because he has just been with the team for two weeks.“I can’t say much on the assistant coach because he has just been with the team for two weeks only. But I believe he will also add impact to the team,” he said.