HOW IMPORTANT ARE FRIENDLY RESULTS?

In one of my previous posts, I deliberately misstated the scores because I believed that friendlies are not competitive, neither team cares about the result (except for FIFA Ranking). I may have been wrong because it seems other teams do care about friendly results for other reasons.

On August 12, 2009 (FIFA FIXED FRIENDLY DATE) Ghana beat Zambia 4-1 in U.K. Gary
quotes Ghana coach: “We needed to keep winning, so it was important that we did that. Now we will go into the next game with our confidence really high.”

Please note that Zambia had to field three Zambian students based in U.K. in their international against Ghana on Wednesday after their South African-based players failed to get visas to travel to Britain in time. The five South Africa’s Premier Soccer League-based players, including Free State Stars goalkeeper Kennedy Mweene and Golden Arrows captain Joseph Musonda, attempted to get their visas at the British High Commission in Pretoria on Monday, which was closed because it was a public holiday.

Zambia had just nine players available for the meeting with the Black Stars and two more arrived just before half-time of the match at Leyton Orient’s ground in London. They added the students Lyson Zulu, who was a former Premier League player in Zambia, as well as Kasase Kabwe and Lengwe Kapotwe, who was the only player on the bench. But he came on after just eight minutes when Njambe Mulenga was injured.

Emmanuel Mayuka, who plays in Armenia, and William Njobvu, who has just moved to Israel, pitched up 10 minutes before half-time and were immediately brought on. They replaced Kabwe and Kapotwe, who by then were running out of breath.

The powerful Ghana side might have added a few more had they not been somewhat merciful in the second half of the game. The scoreline is not a true reflection of the game?

Zambia played the last 50 minutes with 10 men after defender Denis Banda was sent off.

Did somebody say FIFA Rankings take into account friendly results?

Where are we? As the Flames organized themselves for the trip to Denmark, Guinea demoralized the Pharaohs in Egypt. Yes it was a friendly but Guinea shouldn’t be underrated. It seems Guinea strikers believe in themselves. Flames watch out! I don’t want to be the one to tell you: “I told you so.”