{"id":4465,"date":"2025-09-18T18:26:51","date_gmt":"2025-09-18T17:26:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/?p=4465"},"modified":"2025-09-19T16:27:21","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T15:27:21","slug":"chan-round-up-12","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/2025\/09\/18\/chan-round-up-12\/","title":{"rendered":"<strong>CHAN Round-up 12<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>By Satish Sekar \u00a9 Satish Sekar (August 14<sup>th<\/sup> 2025)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Group A Matchday 4<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While Avram Grant impersonates Polyanna, the problems with the Chipolopolo\u2019s CHAN campaign were laid bare this afternoon at the Nyayo Stadium in Nairobi. Morocco\u2019s Atlas Lions easily beat Zambia 3-1. Morocco\u2019s captain Mohamed Rabie Hrimat opened the scoring two minutes into added time at the end of the first half after he had been found in the area by Youssef Mehri\u2019s corner. It was no less than the Atlas Lions\u2019 persistence deserved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Despite Grant\u2019s protests \u2013 he couldn\u2019t see the offence \u2013 VAR disallowed Happy Nsiku\u2019s 65<sup>th<\/sup> minute equaliser for Zambia foul in the build-up. Grant\u2019s misery was compounded by Oussama Lamlaoui opening his account at this edition of the CHAN with a header after 66 minutes \u2013 Mehri delivered the cross for his second assist of the match.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Four minutes later Andrew Phiri pulled one back for Zambia after a goalmouth scramble, prompting an exciting final 20 minutes as Zambia chased the match knowing that they needed a victory to ignite their CHAN campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sabir Bougrine, a substitute introduced after 85 minutes justified Tariq Sektioui\u2019s faith by restoring comfort for the Atlas Lions after 5 minutes of added time \u2013 Lamlaoui\u2019s shot was parried by Zambia\u2019s keeper, Francis Mwansa and Bougrine slotted the rebound in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The gulf between the teams had been starkly exposed. I had been due to attend this match \u2013 my first of the CHAN, but due to a mix-up the second of the day was the first that I attended &#8211;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Angola v Democratic Republic of Congo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Both the Palancas Negras and the Leopards needed a result to reignite their faltering campaigns, especially now that the second seeded team of Group A, Zambia had been eliminated with three losses out of three. Zambia had nothing but pride to play for against the Harambee Stars, who had raised the hopes of a nation under Benni McCarthy after the disappointment of Engin Firhat\u2019s latest spell in charge of Kenya. The Leopards won 2-0 \u2013 Jepht\u00e9 Kitambala Bola opened the scoring after 13 minutes of the second half heading in \u00c2g\u00e9e Basiala\u2019s precise freekick. Substitute Jonathan Mokonzi Katumbwe doubled their lead after 70 minutes \u2013 also a header with an assist from Basiala whose performance is sure to attract interest from watching scouts. The DRC\u2019s win eliminated Angola and set up a winner takes all match against Morocco on August 17<sup>th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Satish Sekar \u00a9 Satish Sekar (August 14th 2025) Group A Matchday 4 While Avram Grant impersonates Polyanna, the problems with the Chipolopolo\u2019s CHAN campaign were<span class=\"excerpt-hellip\"> [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2497,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16],"tags":[1421,1417,259,247,1316,166,1410,1419,438,1415,1420,1422,832,1412,81,1413,1418,1312,423,639,326,1368,640,606,85,1414,22],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4465"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4465"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4465\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4466,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4465\/revisions\/4466"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}