Latest news with #CopperQueens
CAF
a day ago
- Sport
- CAF
Rampant Nigeria smash five past Zambia to reach WAFCON semis
Published: Friday, 18 July 2025 Nigeria delivered a dominant performance to demolish Zambia 5-0 and secure a place in the semi-finals of the 2025 TotalEnergies CAF Women's Africa Cup of Nations (WAFCON) in Casablanca on Friday. The Super Falcons, unbeaten and unbreached in the tournament so far, maintained their defensive record while producing their most clinical attacking display yet, dismantling the Copper Queens with ruthless efficiency at Stade Larbi Zaouli. Nigeria's intent was clear from the first whistle, and they needed just two minutes to assert control. Centre-back Osinachi Ohale rose highest to head home Esther Okoronkwo's pinpoint free-kick delivery, setting the tone for a night to forget for Zambia. The nine-time champions doubled their lead in the 33rd minute when Okoronkwo, again heavily involved, finished off a flowing move with a composed strike into the bottom corner. Zambia, who had shown grit and flair in the group stages, looked shell-shocked. Before the half-time whistle, Nigeria added a third. Chinwendu Ihezuo pounced on a loose ball in the box to slot in a left-footed finish and all but end the contest. Zambia, for all their attacking prowess led by captain Barbra Banda and Grace Chanda, failed to replicate the fluid football that had seen them finish second in Group A. Their attacks were often disjointed and met with a disciplined Nigerian backline anchored by Ashleigh Plumptre. After the break, Nigeria remained in control. Oluwatosin Demehin made it 4-0 in the 68th minute, nodding in from close range after another set-piece wreaked havoc in Zambia's area. The fifth arrived in stoppage time, with substitute Folashade Ijamilusi applying the finishing touch following good work by Rasheedat Ajibade. Zambia's frustration was summed up by Banda's repeated offsides and speculative efforts, while Chanda's long-range attempt in the 51st minute was comfortably blocked. With this emphatic victory, Nigeria maintain their push for a record-extending 10th WAFCON title. Zambia, who had hoped to build on their 2022 bronze finish, now exit the tournament having been outclassed by a side still to concede a single goal. Nigeria will now await their semi-final opponents with growing confidence and belief that their dominance on the continent remains intact.
New York Times
2 days ago
- Sport
- New York Times
The rapid rise of Zambia, a team led by but not reliant on Barbra Banda
The Olympic Stadium Rabat was rocking with boisterous support. Hosts Morocco had high hopes for the opening game of this year's Women's Africa Cup of Nations (WAFCON). But then Barbra Banda dazzled and stole the show in her tournament debut. It took just 58 seconds for the 25-year-old to score. Picking up the ball just inside the Moroccan half, she glided past a couple of challenges before firing a shot from just outside the area past goalkeeper Khadija Er-Rmichi. Advertisement The Orlando Pride forward went on to provide an assist for fellow NWSL star Racheal Kundananji and was named player of the match as the Copper Queens drew 2-2 with the Atlas Lionesses. It may not have been a victory, but it was a statement nevertheless. For the first time in their history, Zambia are one of the tournament favourites. After finishing second in Group A — two victories and a draw left them level on seven points with table-toppers Morocco — the Copper Queens face a difficult quarter-final against nine-time African champions Nigeria today, but thanks to their raft of attacking talent, they enter the match with confidence. There is Banda the history-maker — the first woman to score back-to-back hat-tricks at the Olympics — and her Pride team-mates Prisca Chiufya and Grace Chanda. Bay FC's Kundananji, once the world's most expensive female player, and Fridah Mukoma, currently on loan in China from Kansas City Current, make up the five NWSL players at the vanguard of a nation that has seemingly cracked the code for developing talent. Zambian football is, at its roots, a community sport, played in every corner of the country; from the capital Lusaka to the Copperbelt Province near the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Great Rift Valley on the country's northern fringes. 'There are so many community tournaments that are being hosted and school programmes,' Fred Kangwa, manager of Bauleni United Sports Academy and the man who first spotted Banda, tells The Athletic. 'It is because of the sense of belonging and ownership that communities feel where these girls come from.' Zambia's under-17s, a team which has included Banda and seven other current Copper Queens players, have been dominant at the youth level in Africa. They regularly win the regional Council of Southern African Football Associations (COSAFA) Cup and have recently qualified for their second successive FIFA Under-17 World Cup. However, that success has rarely translated to anything significant at senior level. Advertisement In 2014's WAFCON, Zambia lost every game. After failing to qualify in 2016, they have featured in every edition since. They failed to get out of their group in 2018, but at the next tournament in 2022 they broke through, losing to eventual winners South Africa in the semi-finals. Zambia could not follow up on that progress in last year's Olympics, finishing bottom and without a point in a heavyweight group that included the U.S., Germany and Australia. Change has been bubbling the last decade, in large part thanks to stars like Banda and Kundananji playing abroad in the NWSL. Much of the credit also lies with the strength of the country's domestic football. In 2022, Zambia's 22-player squad was made up of 18 domestically based players. In the mid-2010s, the Zambian Football Federation (FAZ) began incorporating previously unconnected regional leagues into a single football pyramid. Perhaps more impactfully, they also established regular youth-level tournaments for academies and schools to participate in for both boys and girls. Those youth teams feed into provincial youth teams that play in national tournaments, which are monitored by the federation. From an early age, most players are on the radar of the national team — Banda was selected for the Under-17 national side at just 13. The federation has also been proactive at providing international opportunities for those youth players, regularly participating in the COSAFA Cup. While the vast majority of Zambian clubs are community rooted, the top table of Zambian football has always been different. The majority of teams in the top flight are state-run, with various national institutions sponsoring their own teams: the army and air force, as well as sponsorship from state-owned industries and mining companies. This often means that men's clubs struggle to keep up financially with their continental rivals, and those in Europe and North America, who are often owned by wealthy investors. But in the women's game, where private financial investment is virtually non-existent, the modest but consistent salaries that players and staff can be paid are transformative. With a greater amount of national interest in the last few years, almost all of the clubs backed by the state have turned professional. Advertisement 'It's one of the things that attracted other players to come,' Carol Kanyemba, head coach of Green Buffaloes, as well as the Zambian U-17s, tells The Athletic. '(They think) maybe I can be employed in the army, or I can get a salary at the end of the day. I can help my family using this money.' Players at Green Buffaloes are given a salary from the army but are assigned to play football as their job in the military. They are even given ranks. Banda, who played for the Buffaloes for two years, was recently promoted to Warrant Officer Class Two. Clubs like Green Buffaloes and the Red Arrows of the air force also guarantee jobs for players after their footballing career ends, providing a level of stability that is rarely found in football. It's that community support combined with superstar players that help bring about lasting change. That is, players like Banda. The African Player of the Year's career has taken her from the Green Buffaloes — bar a six-month sojourn into boxing where she won all five of her professional bouts — to Dux Logrono in northern Spain and Shanghai Shengli in the Chinese Women's Super League, where she scored 18 goals from 13 games in her first season, before moving to the NWSL. 'She went to boxing because she felt football was not given the necessary attention that it was given for girls,' says Kangwa. 'She thought boxing would be a faster route for her to get employed as a soldier in the Zambia army.' In the U.S. Banda has continued to shine. Last year she was named the league's MVP after scoring 17 goals as the Pride secured a first league title. At last year's Games, she again proved her worth on the world stage, scoring a first-half hat-trick against Australia. No African has scored as many as her 10 goals across two Olympics. And yet, this is her first WAFCON. Banda, who is a cisgender woman, missed the 2018 and 2022 tournaments due to gender eligibility concerns raised by the federation. This was reportedly linked to naturally high testosterone levels that CAF claimed were higher than the federation's limit; however, she has never been found to have broken any rules set by FIFA, CAF or the NWSL. Advertisement With their best player denied a place on one of the sport's biggest stages, Kundananji stepped up in 2018 but also faced exclusion in 2022. Zambia's players found a way forward. Banda scored two hat-tricks at the 2020 Olympics (held in 2021). The professional leagues started to take shape shortly after and a national team with 18 players playing professionally domestically reached WAFCON's semi-finals in 2022. Of course, there are still struggles, like the bottom-of-the-group finish in last year's Olympics, but in the space of seven years, Zambia's overall rise has been swift. And now, they face Nigeria on equal footing with one of Africa's historical heavyweights with a place in the last four at stake.
The Guardian
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Barbra Banda on Zambia's progress at Wafcon: ‘We have a really good feeling'
Having missed the 2022 Women's Africa Cup of Nations as a result of a controversy over the DSD (difference in sex development) test guidelines set by the Confederation of African Football, Barbra Banda was tight-lipped about her feelings as the Copper Queens won bronze without her. Now she is back though. She has scored three goals in Zambia's Wafcon campaign, with the first coming 58 seconds into the tournament's opening game, against hosts Morocco. Banda, who doubles as the Copper Queens captain and attacking pivot, alongside the equally lethal Racheal Kundananji, can finally breathe a huge sigh of relief. 'It really means a lot for me to be here and to be a part of the team. And being with the team. We have a good feeling,' the reigning African women's player of the year tells the Guardian at the Larbi Zaouli stadium, where Zambia will face Nigeria's Super Falcons, the nine-time African champions, for a place in the semi-finals on Friday. 'It's good to have a [personal] title, being the African Player of the Year,' the 25-year-old says. 'But my main motivation is to keep working so hard to get more titles for myself and especially for my teammates. Without them, I will not have these titles. Everything comes from their support and encouragement. Putting on this [national team] shirt, putting on this [Zambia] badge, means everything to me … I need to show people why I am here.' Banda's sterling form at the Wafcon, however, has not enabled the striker to completely drop her guard and express true feelings about how painful it has been to be accused of being a man in a woman's game. After her selection as the 2024 BBC Women's Footballer of the Year, JK Rowling, the renowned author, described the award to Banda, in a tweet, as spitting 'directly in women's faces'. There were reports that she had failed gender eligibility tests, prompting her withdrawal from the 2018 and 2022 Women's Africa Cup of Nations. But the Confederation of African Football have said she did not take a sex eligibility test and was withdrawn by the Football Association of Zambia. Banda says: 'I don't think I would say much [about these remarks] because, at the end of the day, it's football that we are playing,' she says. 'Whatever comes, we are hoping for the best, for each African women's team, to progress and to get that respect that you are talking about. It starts step by step.' The Nigeria defender Ashleigh Plumptre, who has the job of keeping Banda quiet during the quarter-final in Casablanca, praised the Copper Queens captain for weathering the storm of controversy while still displaying great form for NWSL side Orlando Pride. 'Even though I do not know her personally, I have a lot of respect for her, because I can imagine that anybody going through that would find it very tough,' Plumptre says. 'But she has been able to silence everybody as she continues to come out and perform, even with a smile on her face. You can see that her team and country gets behind her. The women's football world got behind her as well.' Sign up to Moving the Goalposts No topic is too small or too big for us to cover as we deliver a twice-weekly roundup of the wonderful world of women's football after newsletter promotion Nothing matters more to Banda, at the moment, than the dream of captaining Zambia to a first Wafcon title, which would be the country's second African title overall, after the Chipolopolo, Zambia's male national team, won the 2012 Afcon. 'It would mean a lot to our country,' she says. 'Everybody back home is waiting for this title and they are cheering us on. Their support keeps on pushing us.' During the pre-match press conference the Zambia coach, Nora Hauptle, was asked to describe the importance of Banda to her team. Hauptle turned towards Banda and said: 'It is strange for me to talk to you about Barbra, who is sitting next to me … For me, Barbra is an absolutely top athlete but also a top human [being]. I was also curious when I came to Zambia, because I didn't know who she was and I needed to get a feeling for her. She is one of the top athletes in the world, in terms of her behaviour, on and off the pitch … I have never seen Barbra display an arrogant attitude. She is very professional and she never complains.' Looking directly at Banda, Hauptle added: 'I think you're on course to win, one day, the Ballon d'Or.'
eNCA
2 days ago
- Sport
- eNCA
Copper Queens looking to clip Super Falcons' wings
LUSAKA - The knockout stages of the Women's Africa Cup of Nations are finally getting underway, four days after the conclusion of the group campaign. Kicking off the quarter-finals are record nine-time champions Nigeria and Zambia. The Super Falcons enter the tie as clear favourites, thanks to their impressive form in 2025 boasting four wins and two draws from six matches. Despite Nigeria's dominance in the tournament's history, the Copper Queens have reason to believe. They famously defeated the Super Falcons in their last WAFCON encounter in 2022. Zambian football journalist Calvin Chikenge noted the growing interest in women's football, saying that more young girls are now taking the sport seriously as a career a major shift from the past, where this was rarely the case.
CAF
2 days ago
- Sport
- CAF
Nigeria vs Zambia - Veteran Giants Meet Rising Force in Blockbuster Quarterfinal
Two of Africa's most exciting and ambitious women's football nations, Nigeria and Zambia are set for a decisive clash in the quarterfinals of the 2024 TotalEnergies Women's Africa Cup of Nations (WAFCON) on Friday in Casablanca. A fierce contest awaits at the Larbi Zaouli Stadium, where a semifinal ticket, legacy, and continental bragging rights will be on the line. It's a rivalry that has grown in intensity over recent years, and with both sides bringing unbeaten group stage form, this quarterfinal promises to be one of the highlights of the tournament. Route to the Quarterfinals: Unbeaten and Unrelenting Both Nigeria and Zambia arrive in the last eight with their confidence intact following strong group-stage performances. Nigeria topped Group B with seven points, kicking off with a commanding 3-0 win over Tunisia, followed by a gritty 1-0 win over Botswana, and a goalless draw against Algeria. The Super Falcons are yet to concede a goal in the competition — a testament to their discipline and structure under head coach Justin Madugu. 'Our preparations have been good. As usual, we are already aware of the game tomorrow — a quarterfinal against Zambia. We've been trying as much as possible to make sure that the girls are ready,' Madugu said. 'Preparations are okay.' Zambia, on the other hand, impressed in Group A, finishing second only to hosts Morocco on goal difference with seven points. The Copper Queens battled to a 2-2 draw against the Atlas Lionesses, followed it up with a thrilling 3-2 comeback win over Senegal, and sealed qualification with a 1-0 victory over DR Congo. Coach Hauptle expressed confidence in her squad's evolution and readiness: 'I am happy to have had these days to prepare for the quarterfinal. I think my team is ready for the next stage. We moved down to Casablanca yesterday excited and prepared for tomorrow's game.' Squad News: Key Absentees and Returns Both sides will be without a key attacking option due to injury. For Zambia, Xiomara Mapepa will miss the encounter due to a fitness setback, but the Southern Africans will welcome back midfield dynamo Grace Chanda following suspension — a timely boost to their creativity and drive in midfield. 'We will be with 20 players tomorrow,' Hauptle confirmed. 'We released one home due to medical condition. Grace Chanda is back from her suspension. We are willing to play the match and go beyond to penalties.' Nigeria will miss Malawian-Nigerian forward Chioma Okafor, who is ruled out due to a hand injury sustained in training. According to Madugu, 'The doctors gave a medical advice based on the operation that was done on her hand that she can't use it to play any game till after 12 days. It would not be wise to go against that.' However, the Super Falcons will see Deborah Abiodun return to the fold after serving her one-match suspension — an addition that boosts midfield steel and ball progression. Renewed Rivalry: A Shift in the Power Balance? Nigeria's dominance in WAFCON history is well documented, with a record nine titles and emphatic wins over Zambia in previous editions — including a 6-0 win in 2014 and 4-0 in 2018. But the Copper Queens flipped the script in 2022, edging Nigeria 1-0 in the third-place match — a symbolic win that underscored their arrival among the continent's best. Coach Madugu, who was on Nigeria's technical crew during all three previous encounters, remains respectful but focused: 'We cannot take away the fact that Zambia are a good team, but they are not unbeatable. The girls are in high spirits and fully ready for them. They, too, are very uncomfortable coming up against us.' Zambia captain Barbra Banda — absent during the 2018 and 2022 clashes — is relishing the opportunity to lead her side in this edition. '2018 and 2022 are in the past. What we are focusing on is what we have now,' she said. 'It's going to be an interesting game. This is Africa, and football here is different from the States. It's going to be competitive and at the end of the day, one team will win.' Plumptre vs Banda Headlines Star-Studded Cast This quarterfinal brings together some of the finest talents in African women's football. Nigeria's Ashleigh Plumptre, one of only two Super Falcons named in the Group Stage Best XI, has marshaled a backline yet to concede a goal. 'Preparations are going well. Everyone is in good spirits. The atmosphere in camp is calm and exciting,' said Plumptre, who also spoke on Zambia's threats. 'Zambia have a good attacking line and we respect that. We prepare for the whole team and not just a few players.' On facing Banda: 'I don't know her personally, but I remember the gender verification backlash she faced. I have a lot of respect for her. She had to silence everyone and perform with a smile on her face. I really look forward to coming up against her.' Banda, who has scored in every group match, remains Zambia's talisman.'Honestly, I am not carrying any pressure with me. It's just motivation to work extra hard. Meeting Oshoala is great motivation for me. I give her much respect.' Tactics and Mindset: Calm Structure vs Controlled Chaos Madugu's ladies have shown defensive solidity and tactical discipline. 'We all defend as one and attack as one,' Plumptre noted. 'We are proud to have gone through the group stage without conceding.' Still, the Super Falcons coach admits finishing has been a concern. 'We've been trying to improve our goal conversion. These things take time; it's not magical. But I trust the girls will make an impact.' Zambia's approach is fast, fearless, and fluid. 'Our transition is one of the best in the world,' said Hauptle. 'Defenders struggle when we challenge them with speed.' She also stressed belief in team unity and mentality: 'We don't look too much at the opponent but focus on our strengths. We believe in unity and love — that's what drives us.' What's at Stake: More Than Just a Semifinal Spot Nigeria's ambitions are clear: reclaim the WAFCON title and reassert their dominance. But Madugu maintains a grounded outlook. 'We all believe in God and destiny. Even when we came fourth in 2022, it was never the plan. But our mindset is about winning — and that is what we are going for.' Zambia, meanwhile, are determined to go beyond their 2022 bronze finish and prove their progress is sustainable. 'We conceded from set pieces in the group stage, so we are working on that,' Hauptle noted. 'We won't allow Nigeria to keep the initiative. On Friday, we will show what we can do.' For Plumptre, individual accolades pale in comparison to team success: 'I was surprised to be named in the Best XI. It's a reflection of the entire team. I just hope we can carry those performances into the next round.' Kickoff: Friday, July 19, 2024 Venue: Larbi Zaouli Stadium, Casablanca Winner: Advances to the semifinals of the 2024 Women's Africa Cup of Nations
