Chipolopolo want maiden Afcon win

For the Zambian football team heading to the Nations Cup in less than two weeks, their quarterfinal achievement at the last tournament in Angola 2010 will weigh heavily on their minds.

Chipolopolo want to do even better this time, meaning getting past the quarterfinals in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea over the next two months in the Nations Cup.

To surpass 2010, the Zambians are looking even further back for inspiration - to 1993 when a wonderfully talented Zambian football team perished in an aircraft crash of April that year.

Current Zambia captain Christopher Katongo calls the team of '93 "Zambia's greatest ever".

It was almost 19 years ago that an 18-member Zambian squad flew to Dakar to play a World Cup qualifier against Senegal. The plane crashed en route, killing 25 passengers and five crew.

"That team could have gone far," said Katongo after his team's training in Johannesburg yesterday ahead of tomorrow night's friendly against Bafana Bafana.

And "going far" is Chipolopolo's theme when the Nations Cup kicks off next Saturday.

"They [the team of 1993] had the spirit and unity as a team and maybe we can go beyond and be remembered as the best Zambian team of all time," said the skipper.

Zambia have never won the Nations Cup. They have finished runners-up twice, in 1974 and the year after the aircraft disaster. Many believe had tragedy not struck, the team would have clinched the continental competition in 1994.

"You can see we know what is at stake," said Katongo.

"I think our football is now in the right hands and we have to do better than the last Nations Cup in Angola. We even brought back our coach [Frenchman Herve Renard] to help us reach our targets; we owe it to our fans." By "right hands", Katongo means the president of the Football Association of Zambia, Kalusha Bwalya, a former Africa player of the year and a nominee for world player of the year in 1996.

Bwalya was part of the 1993 team, but was not on the plane that crashed.

"A former footballer will know how we feel and do what is best for football," said Katongo of Bwalya.

The Zambians are in a tough group at the tournament, having being drawn with co-hosts Equatorial Guinea, as well as Libya and Senegal.