Former Zambia captain Christopher Katongo has begun studying for his coaching badges as he considers a future career in coaching.<\/p>\n
The 34-year-old, who led his country to 2012 Africa Cup of Nations title, is still playing for Zambian top-flight side Green Buffaloes.<\/p>\n
“Now I’m still thinking about playing. But after retiring, I’ll know what I want to do next,” he told BBC Sport.<\/p>\n
“Coaching is just one of the options hence me getting the basic training.”<\/p>\n
Katongo has already acquired some coaching qualifications with Zambian Football Association as well as the Confederation of African Football.<\/p>\n
“It’s important for me to get these badges because anything can happen in life,” added the 2012 BBC African Footballer of the Year.<\/p>\n
“I am approaching the end of my career though I feel my legs can take me up to another four years or so before I start thinking about retiring.”<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Katongo has criticised Zambia for what he sees as an ability to plan for the future – in stark contrast to his own forethought.<\/p>\n
After being crowned African champions almost five years ago, Chipolopolo have suffered two first-round exits since and have not made it to next year’s tournament in Gabon.<\/p>\n
“I think we failed to qualify for the tournament because the transition after winning the cup in 2012 was not handled properly,” Katongo said.<\/p>\n
“A lot of players that won the tournament have been discarded for new ones who lack the necessary experience.<\/p>\n
“We need to be patient in order for us to build a strong team for the future and avoid rushing young players.”<\/p>\n
–
\nSource: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Former Zambia captain Christopher Katongo has begun studying for his coaching badges as he considers a future career in coaching. The 34-year-old, who led his country to 2012 Africa Cup of Nations title, is still playing for Zambian top-flight side Green Buffaloes. “Now I’m still thinking about playing. But after retiring, I’ll know what I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":280644,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[142],"tags":[564,2186],"class_list":["post-280643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football","tag-citi-sports","tag-zambia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=280643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280643\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=280643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=280643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=280643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}