FACING MALAWI IS PRESSURE – QUEENS COACH
By Mubukwanu Kaingu
Zambia women’s national team coach Florence Mwila says they are ready for Malawi in tomorrow’s 2024 COSAFA Women’s Cup semifinal after advancing to the penultimate stage on Tuesday with a 7-0 win over Comoros.
The victory over Comoros saw Zambia win Group C on maximum 6 points from two games to join the other respective group winners South Africa and Malawi in Thursday’s semifinals.
Zambia will face defending champions Malawi tomorrow in a 12h00 kickoff at Wolfson Stadium that will host Saturday’s final.
It will be the second successive COSAFA Women’s Cup in which the two sides will meet after Malawi defeated Zambia 2-1 in the 2023 final hosted in Gauteng, South Africa.
But coach Mwila said they are ready for unbeaten Malawi, who won two and drew one game to win Group B on 7 points ahead of Botswana who finished second with 5 points.
“The pressure is there because we know how strong the team (Malawi) is but we will not let our guard down. We have also prepared to withstand that pressure,” Mwila said.
“So the girls are ready; we are prepared for it and we will go into the game knowing we are playing a tough team that we will not underrate.
“We will not relax as well and we will also give them a tough game as well.”
In the other semifinal, South Africa will face the winner from Group D where Mozambique on 3 points were by press time playing Lesotho who had zero points while Zimbabwe, on 3 points, had completed their two group fixtures.
Meanwhile, it was a humbling result for Comoros who came into the game armed with a 3-1 win over Angola last Saturday who earlier lost 3-0 to Zambia on October 24 in their opening Group C fixture.
Three of Zambia’s goals came in the opening ten months of the first half that saw them take a four-nil lead into the break.
Mukoma scored two of her three goals on the day in the first half when she opened scores in the 8th minute while Oseke added Zambia’s second three minutes later while the former made it three-nil in the 10th minute.
Regina Chanda scored the fourth goal in stoppage time of the first half to record her second of the tournament.
Oseke completed her brace in the 61st minute to also add to her overall tally of three at this year’s COSAFA women’s Cup.
Mukoma completed her hat-trick in the 75th minute in a match she scored her first three of the 2024 COSAFA Women’s Cup.
Charity Mubanga finished the day with Zambia’s seventh goal of the day to see the 2022 COSAFA Women’s Cup winners to qualify for their eighth consecutive semifinal of the regional senior women’s football championship.
