{"id":11306,"date":"2012-06-10T11:07:00","date_gmt":"2012-06-10T09:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/06\/wrapup-1-soccer-zambia-return-to-winning-ways-in-cup-qualifier\/"},"modified":"2012-06-10T11:07:00","modified_gmt":"2012-06-10T09:07:00","slug":"wrapup-1-soccer-zambia-return-to-winning-ways-in-cup-qualifier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wrapup-1-soccer-zambia-return-to-winning-ways-in-cup-qualifier\/","title":{"rendered":"WRAPUP 1-Soccer-Zambia return to winning ways in Cup qualifier"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>By Mark Gleeson<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"articleLocation\">CAPE TOWN, June 9<\/span> (Reuters) &#8211; Zambia marked their first home<br \/>\ngame since becoming African champions with a 1-0 win over Ghana<br \/>\non Saturday that not only helped them relive their celebrations<br \/>\nbut also restored their World Cup hopes.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Captain Chris Katongo&#8217;s goal after 15 minutes ensured a<br \/>\nsuccessful opening of the new 40,000-capacity, Chinese-funded<br \/>\nstadium in Ndola and put Zambia back on track after losing their<br \/>\nopening Group D game in the Sudan last week.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Their win was one of five on a busy day of qualifying across<br \/>\nthe continent where the other five matches ended in draws.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Tunisia were the only away winners, beating the Cape Verde<br \/>\nIslands 2-1, while Namibia had a rare success as Henrico Botes<br \/>\nscored an 85th minute winner at home against Kenya.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>A last-minute equaliser, in a 2-2 draw with Morocco, ended<br \/>\nthe Ivory Coast&#8217;s eight-match winning streak in qualifying<br \/>\nfixtures stretching back to late 2009.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Nigeria also gave up a stoppage-time equaliser to draw 1-1<br \/>\nin Malawi, while the woes of 2010 World Cup hosts South Africa<br \/>\ncontinued with a stalemate at lightweight neighbours Botswana.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Zambia, who won a first ever continental crown at the<br \/>\nAfrican Nations Cup earlier this year, played their customary<br \/>\ncounter attacking game to take all three points from a<br \/>\nlacklustre Ghana, who had beat Lesotho 7-0 the previous weekend.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The Ivorians, who Zambia beat in February&#8217;s final, were<br \/>\nodds-on for a second win in Group C before Hamza Abdourazzouk<br \/>\nequalised with a towering header.<br \/>\n\u00a0 <span class=\"label\"><strong>Continued&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Mark Gleeson CAPE TOWN, June 9 (Reuters) &#8211; Zambia marked their first home game since becoming African champions with a 1-0 win over Ghana on Saturday that not only helped them relive their celebrations but also restored their World Cup hopes. Captain Chris Katongo&#8217;s goal after 15 minutes ensured a successful opening of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-11306","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11306\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}