James Copnall BBC West Africa football correspondent

Bwalya is the technical director of Zambian football

Kalusha Bwalya returned to Senegal for the first time since the tragic 1993 plane crash in which almost all the Zambia team perished.

Eleven years ago, Zambia had been on the way to play a World Cup qualifier in Senegal when their plane crashed off the coast of Gabon, killing everyone on board.

Bwalya, the team's best player at the time, survived because he was making his own way to Dakar from his base in Europe.

Now, he is the technical director of Zambian football and coach of the national team, the Chipolopolo.

Our football will always be associated with the fallen heroes Kalusha Bwalya

Bwalya could have been forgiven for flinching slightly when taking the team to Dakar for Saturday's World Cup qualifier.

However, when he arrived in Senegal, after an uneventful flight, the legend was insisting it was business as usual.

"I'm always happy to be anywhere in football," Bwalya told the BBC Sport.

"Our football will always be associated with the fallen heroes and we hope that we represent the will that they had to go to the World Cup and to be African champions.

"This is the dream that every Zambian has."

Rather than fly to Dakar from Lusaka, as the 1993 team did, the 2004 Chipolopolo camped in the considerably cooler conditions in Holland, before taking a plane for Dakar.

Bwalya was Zambia's star player at the time of the tragedy

But Bwalya was quick to dismiss suggestions that the slightly unusual route was chosen in an effort to avoid the emotional charge of following too closely the footsteps of the fallen heroes.

"It is not for emotional reasons, no. It was a question of flight connections. We would have lost three days either way if we had gone back to Zambia."

Those six extra days of training were not quite enough for Zambia to continue their impressive start to the 2006 combined Nations Cup and World Cup qualifiers.

Senegal's teenage striker Babacar Gueye scored after 20 minutes, and though the young Zambians created a host of second half chances, they were unable to convert any of them.

Bwalya is in the process of introducing fresh new talent to the national side, and Zambia are likely to be a force in continental football in the years to come.

Back in the present though, did 'King Kalu' find the trip to Senegal difficult?

"Not much," he said. "We have played against Senegal since then, in Ivory Coast and in Zambia.

"It's true it is always going to be emotional for the national team when it plays though.