MULENGA QUESTIONS ZAMBIA’S YOUTH FOOTBALL STRATEGY

Former Zambia international winger and 2007 CAF Young Player of the Year Clifford Mulenga has questioned Zambia’s approach to youth football development, calling for a long-term strategy built around continuity, coaching development and a clear player pathway.

Mulenga says Zambia risks treating youth national teams as short-term projects that are assembled when tournaments approach, rather than as part of a structured system for developing the country’s next generation of footballers.

“Do we actually have a national youth football development strategy in Zambia or do we simply assemble teams whenever there is a tournament?” Mulenga asked.

He has also questioned the practice of having three to four sitting Premier League head coaches simultaneously serving as coaches of youth national teams.

Mulenga stressed that his concerns are not about the quality of the coaches involved, but rather about the structure and continuity of the national youth setup.

“It is about the structure, the vision and the continuity,” he said.

According to Mulenga, Zambia’s youth teams should form a connected development pathway, with the Under-17 team preparing players for the Under-20, while the Under-20 should feed into the Under-23 and eventually the senior national team.

He believes this requires a recognisable football philosophy, a coaching pathway and technical continuity across the different age groups.

“There should be people whose primary responsibility is developing Zambia’s next generation of footballers,” Mulenga said.

He argues that the current approach can sometimes resemble a cycle where a coach is appointed ahead of a tournament, prepares the team, competes, and then the process starts again once the tournament ends.

“WHERE IS THE LONG-TERM PLAN?” he asked.

Mulenga has further challenged Zambian football authorities to give grassroots coaches greater opportunities to work at national and international level, arguing that these coaches spend years working with young players and should have a pathway to experience the national team environment.

He also questioned what it means for Zambia’s youth coaching ecosystem if the preferred solution for every youth national team is to appoint a sitting senior club head coach.

“If our best solution for every youth national team is to take a sitting head coach from a senior club, what does that say about the development of our own national youth coaching ecosystem?” he asked.

For Mulenga, the issue goes beyond coaches and results. He believes Zambia must examine whether it is genuinely developing coaches, players and a distinct football identity.

“Are we developing coaches? Are we developing players? Are we developing a football identity? Or are we simply trying to win the next tournament?” he questioned.

He argues that winning a youth tournament should not be the ultimate measure of success because competition results are only one part of player development.

“Winning a youth tournament is an event. Developing a generation of footballers is a system,” Mulenga said.

He believes the debate should therefore move away from simply asking who is coaching a youth national team and instead focus on why that person has been appointed, what the objective is, where a player is expected to be in five years and who is responsible for helping him get there.

“That, for me, is the real Chronicle,” Mulenga said.

“What exactly are we building?”