By Boris Esono N
Sports Writer kick442.com-Cameroon
Lesotho has bounced back from their opening game loss to Eswatini with an emphatic victory against defending champion and favourite Zambia this Thursday at the Isaac Wolfson Stadium.
A brace from substitute Sera Motebang after Zambia had earlier taken the lead in the game through Justin Shonga was enough for Lesotho to pick up the victory.
Milutin Sredojevic’s men went into the tournament with high hopes as defending champions, while their opponents’ confidence took a beating as they were defeated 3-1 by Eswatini in their opening game of the group stage.
The Crocodiles of Lesotho came into the tournament in a concerning run of form, having failed to win an international game since they defeated South Africa in 2019. And in their first game of the COSAFA Cup, the side was beaten 3-1 to Eswatini.
Justin Shonga, who plays for the South African side of Cape Town City, opened the scoring for the Chipolopolo at the 29mins, much to the delight of the management who have a goal to defend the title.
Both sides will have chances later in the first half but could not put it away as the team headed into the break with Zambia leading Lesotho 1-0.
It will be a different second half than the first with Lesotho looking for the much-needed equalizer that keeps the team still with an outside chance of progressing to the next stage of the competition.
The team will finally found the back of the net at the 70thmins with Sera Motebang, who plays for Bloemfontein Celtic with the equalizer.
Sera Motebang will then capped off a brilliant performance breaking the hearts of the Zambian fans with his second goal of the game at the 88mins. That goal proved to be the winning goal of the game and gave all three points to Lesotho.
Coming in as the defending champions having lifted the trophy in 2019, Zambia will be confident of putting another strong COSAFA Cup run together this year, as they aim to secure their sixth title. But they will have to start picking up wins to achieve that objective.
The win places Lesotho on the third spot in Group A with 3 points. Zambia is fourth with 0 points after playing one game. Zambia will next take to the pitch on Saturday, July 10 against the group leader Eswatini, while Lesotho looks to make it two wins on the spin against Botswana.
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