Off the back of a first victory in the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers, Zambia welcome Chad to the Levy Mwanawasa Stadium on Friday afternoon. While the hosts head into this one on a high, the visitors will make the journey in need of pick-me-up as they look to kickstart their qualifying campaign with all three points here. © Imago Zambia showed great mettle to emerge triumphant from a thrilling five-goal contest against Sierra Leone when the teams locked horns on September 10.
Having thrown away 1-0 and 2-1 leads, Avram Grant 's men were set for a share of the spoils on home turf, only for Kings Kangwa to grab the winning goal five minutes from the end of normal time. That ended a dismal run of nine competitive outings without a victory for the Chipolopolo, who had also come away empty-handed from six consecutive matches prior. While Grant saw his side fail to keep a clean sheet for the 15th straight game, he would have been pleased by their attacking output after five straight games without a goal.
Currently second in Group G of the AFCON qualifiers, Zambia could potentially pull five points clear of the chasing pack before next week's trip to Yaounde for the second leg of their double-header against Chad. Chad's downward spiral continued in last month's encounter against the Elephants of Ivory Coast which ended in a 2-0 defeat at Stade Ahmadou Ahidjo. After setting up Jean-Philippe Krasso 's opener on the stroke of half time, Oumar Diakite grabbed a second-half clin.