Frankie Musonda has told how he is setting his sights on Morocco next year after qualifying for another major international tournament.
Musonda and his Zambian teammates topped their African Cup of Nations qualifying group in style with wins over the Ivory Coast and Sierra Leone in recent days.
The Chipolopolo, bossed by former Chelsea coach Avram Grant, will head to next December’s tournament in fine heart after flopping at this year’s version when eliminated in the group stage.
But Musonda is adamant they can put that right – with victory over the defending champions on Friday giving cause for optimism.
He told the Zambian FA: “The way we’ve gone about our business, especially after losing the first game of the qualifiers, has been been really good. The last AFCON was a good experience for all of us but we want to go further in the competition. You can see we’ve all learned from that and are moving in the right direction.
“The country is in a really good place right now. We’ve still got players to come back in as well. Tournament football is a different experience and in the games we played last time we were a bit unfortunate at times – we only lost one of the games and didn’t play that badly. As a country we expected to do better and it was a learning curve.”
Musonda was denied a goal by the linesman’s flag in yesterday’s 2-0 win over Sierra Leone, which secured the Copper Bullets top spot in their qualifying group.
He added: “It’s great to be part of a team that’s qualified twice now back to back. It’s an amazing achievement for myself and the country and getting us back to where we should be at AFCON. We’ve been away for so long and it’s good to get that consistency back and I feel so grateful to be part of it.
“Any opportunity I get to play for the country is a privilege and one that I never take for granted.
“We know how fortunate we are. There’s 20 million people in Zambia and when you think about how many of those would love to be in our position to represent their country and be in that 23 man squad. So to be able to represent the country is a fantastic feeling and we hope to put a smile on faces.”