Given Singulama scored in the first two minutes of the match for Zambia after the Congo DR goalkeeper, Robert Kidiaba Muteba, failed to clear his lines properly. The TP Mazembe midfielder fired the ball into the back of the net with a very good finish, after Chisamba Lungu found the goal scorer with the assist. However, the Democratic Republic of the Cong really settled in after that and created the majority of the chances throughout the remainder of the opening 45 minutes.
It was Dieudonne Mbokani who had the first opportunity for the DRC as he was found at the far post, but he fired well over the goal after Kennedy Mweene spilt an easy cross. The Zambian goalkeeper did not have a great first 45 minutes, despite keeping his clean sheet. In the eleventh minute, Yannick Bolaise hit a good cross inside the eighteen yard box, but Mweene bobbled the catch initially before securing it in his gloves.
The Crystal Palace winger had a good first half as he blazed up and down the right side of the pitch, just as he does over in the Premier League. His pace and skill was causing Zambia all sorts of fits. For Zambia, it looked like they only had one way of playing their football today and that was to try to feed their Southampton forward with long balls over the top. That did not work, however, and they tried to focus just on defending and hanging on to their slim lead.
Somehow, Zambia would lead at the halftime interval despite all of that pressure from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. As the second half started taking fold, their defense would continue to be pressured time and time again. Mbokani had another chance in the opening stages of a half as he fired his shot high and wide of the target. A through ball was hit into the path of Kage, but the Zambia goalie raced off of his line to claim the ball, just four minutes after the restart.
The DRC would finally get their reward after all of the hard work they had put in throughout the first hour of the match. Once again, Zambia could not clear their lines properly and the ball was rifled into the back of the net by the Crystal Palace winger, Bolaise as he fell to the ground. It was the equalizer that they absolutely deserved and you could definitely felt that they could have gone on to find the winner in this match.
Zambia would come to life, seemingly out of nowhere, with about ten minutes left to go in the match. It was Rainford Kalaba who was urging the rest of his teammates to push on, as a captain should. However, it would be Mbokani once again who narrowly misses the go ahead goal as he tried an audacious overhead kick which Mweene saved comfortably, with seven minutes left to play. However, that would be the last significant action of the match as the ending seemed to take forever as the pace slowed down severely.