The Zambian heavyweights slumped to a loss on Thursday and the technical bench head has since explained why the duo was excluded
Zesco United coach Numba Mumamba has revealed Kenyans Jesse Were and Ian Otieno were excluded from the team that fell 2-0 to Kafue Celtic owing to disciplinary issues.
In the match played at Edwin Imboela Stadium in Lusaka on Wednesday, Joel Bwalya opened the scoring in the 29th minute before Richard Daka doubled the advantage in the 61st minute to hand the league debutants maximum points.
Kelvin Kampamba, Solomon Sakala, Dickson Chapa, Gregory Sanjase, and Simon Silwimba were also missing from the team after joining the Zambia national team ahead of their 2022 World Cup qualification double-header against Equatorial Guinea.
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Otieno and Were lacked discipline
However, Were and Otieno, who were available, were the surprise omissions from the team and the tactician has stated why.
“We left the two guys due to discipline issues otherwise they are both fine. Discipline is very key to everyone,” Mumamba told the club’s official portal.
“I think when we have a backlog of games everyone must be at their best in terms of behaviour. That’s why we left the other two guys because they were not looking after themselves very well. We decided to leave them out so that we instil discipline in the team.”
The tactician went on to comment on what contributed to the loss.
“It has to start with individual attitude. Our attitude was very wrong on the pitch. This is not the Zesco United we know. We have beaten better teams than the team we faced today. It is a matter of working on our attitude.”
While Were is not part of the Harambee Stars squad for the Mali double-header, Ian Otieno is part of the Engin Firat charges.
Kenya is scheduled to play Mali at d’Agadir Stadium in Agadir, Morocco on October 7 while the second meeting will be at Nyayo Stadium in Nairobi three days later.
Stars started their campaign with a stalemate at home against neighbours Uganda before settling to a 1-1 draw away to Rwanda. Their opponents defeated Amavubi 1-0 in their opening fixture before drawing 0-0 with Cranes to maintain the top spot with four points.