The HOLLYWOODBETS COSAFA Women’s Championship will be staged in Gqeberha, South Africa from October 22-November 2.
It will feature a record 14 teams, making it the largest women’s international competition on the African continent and we bring you profiles of three of those sides, Angola, Botswana and Comoros.
ANGOLA
Best finish: Runners-up (2008)
FIFA Ranking: 148
CAF Ranking: 28
Last five tournaments:
2019 – Group Stage
2020 – Group Stage
2021 – Group Stage
2022 – Group Stage
2023 – Group Stage
Angola will be making a return to the HOLLYWOODBETS COSAFA Women’s Championship for the sixth year running in 2023 but have not made it past the group stages in the previous five tournaments.
They had taken a hiatus from the competition before their showing in 2019 and have appeared in seven of the 11 previous tournaments overall. It shows the renewed emphasis that is being put back on the women’s game in the country after they failed to enter the qualifiers for the 2015 and 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cups.
They had also not played in the continental qualifiers since attempting to reach the 2010 African Women’s Championship, though they were back in the preliminaries for the 2022 finals but lost 7-1 to eventual quarterfinalists Botswana.
They have twice before been to the African Women’s Championship. In 1995 they reached the semifinals but lost 6-4 on aggregate to South Africa. They appeared again in 2002 but drew two and lost one of their three first round matches and finished third in their pool.
Their first appearance at the COSAFA Women’s Championship finals was in 2006 when they lost to Zimbabwe in a first round tie that ended up being played over two legs.
It was initially a three-team group, but when Mozambique withdrew, Angola and Zimbabwe played two games against one-another, that were won 3-1 and 1-0 by the Mighty Warriors.
They featured again in 2008, this time as hosts, and made it all the way through to the final against what was essentially an Under-20 selection from South Africa after a clash of fixtures for the senior national team.
The South Africans still proved too powerful though as they claimed a 3-1 final win in a competition where Noko Matlou netted 12 goals.
Angola did not appear again until the 2019 championship, but found the going tough, winning just one of their three pool matches. They opened the tournament with a 4-1 loss to Zimbabwe, and that was followed by a 4-0 defeat to Eswatini.
They managed to gain some pride back with a 3-1 victory over rivals Mozambique in their final pool game to finish third in Group C.
They were back again in 2020 and following a 2-0 opening loss to South Africa, managed a 1-1 draw with Comoros Islands and a thrilling 4-3 victory over Eswatini.
They could not advance past the group stages again in 2021, draw with Mozambique (2-2) and South Africa (0-0), but them losing to eventual finalists Malawi (2-0) to bow out at the first stage.
They managed four points in 2022 with a win over Mauritius (3-0), a draw with Mozambique (1-1) and a loss to South Africa (3-0). That was enough for third place in the pool.
In 2023 they won one of their three matches, beating Comoros 5-0 but losing to Zambia (3-1) and Mozambique (1-0).
BOTSWANA
Best finish: Second (2020)
FIFA Ranking: 153
CAF Ranking: 32
Last five tournaments:
2019 – Fourth
2020 – Runners-Up
2021 – Group Stage
2022 – Group Stage
2023 – Group Stage
Botswana will be seeking to build on their quarterfinal showing at the 2022 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco when they return again to the regional stage, where they were also HOLLYWOODBETS COSAFA Women’s Championship finalists in 2020.
They made it through to the decider four years ago from a three-team first round pool with a pair of 1-0 wins over Tanzania and Zimbabwe, before edging Zambia in a close semifinal.
That set up a decider against South Africa, but it was the home side who triumphed 2-1 at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium. It was still The Mares’ best finish in the COSAFA Women’s Championship and an excellent tournament overall.
They also made it through to the last four in 2019 but lost 4-0 to eventual runners-up Zambia. They went through the pool stages unbeaten though, defeating Namibia (1-0) and Mauritius (3-0), before playing to a 0-0 draw with Zambia.
They then lost the bronze-medal match, going down 3-0 to Zimbabwe.
But it is a vast improvement on past showings after they did not win a match in their first three visits to the tournament in 2002, 2008 and 2011. They broke that duck in 2017 with a 3-0 success over Lesotho.
They also managed draw against eventual champions South Africa, but it was not enough to advance from their pool as they finished second.
In 2018 they opened with a 2-0 win over Malawi, lost 1-0 to South Africa and drew 0-0 with Madagascar to finish runners-up in their pool.
Their tournament in 2021 proved a disappointment too as they did not make it out of the group phase, despite opening with a thumping 7-0 win over South Sudan, which was their joint biggest ever margin of victory over beating Mauritius by the same scoreline in 2016.
The Mares then lost 2-0 to eventual champions Tanzania and 3-0 to Zimbabwe as they missed out on the semifinals.
They went unbeaten in the 2022 COSAFA Women’s Championship but draws with Malawi (1-1) and Tanzania (0-0), and a 6-0 win over Comoros, was not enough to progress from their pool.
They were again unbeaten in 2023, but once more it was draws that saw them fail to advance. They beat Lesotho 3-0 but were held by Namibia (1-) and Zimbabwe (1-1) and did not advance from the pool.
Their very first match in the regional showpiece competition in 2002 ended in a 14-0 loss to South Africa.
That opening defeat was in fact the very first fixture of the national team, who are now celebrating 23 years of playing at international level.
They did so in style with an excellent showing at the 2022 WAFCON, which was also their first ever appearance at a major finals.
They eased past Angola (7-1 on aggregate) in the first qualification round, before edging Zimbabwe on the away goals rule to book their place in Morocco.
They beat Burundi 4-2 in their tournament opener and despite defeats to powerhouses Nigeria (2-0) and South Africa (1-0), qualified for the quarterfinals, where they were narrow losers to hosts and eventual finalists Morocco (2-1).
COMOROS
Best finish: Group Stages (2019, 2020, 2022, 2023)
FIFA Ranking: 188
CAF Ranking: 43
Last five tournaments:
2019 – Group Stage
2020 – Group Stage
2021 – Did not enter
2022 – Group Stage
2023 – Group Stage
Comoros Islands will return to the HOLLYWOODBETS COSAFA Women’s Championship for the fourth time after difficult showings in 2019, 2020, 2022 and 2023 from which many lessons will have been learnt.
They will be keen to show their improvement and this experience will no doubt hold them in good stead.
It was tough on debut in 2019 when they were placed in a difficult pool and lost all three games, going down 17-0 to hosts South Africa in their opener.
That is a record score in the competition as the eventual winners used their greater experience and physicality to ensure they claimed a big win. Comoros also lost 5-1 to Madagascar and 13-0 to Malawi in their other pool games.
They were certainly much improved on their return in 2020 when they lost their opener 4-2 to Eswatini, but then claimed an excellent 1-1 draw with Angola, their first point in the competition.
However, they came untuck again against the powerful South Africans, who won 7-0.
It proved a challenge in 2022 too as they lost all three matches, conceding 15 goals in the process. They went down to Tanzania (3-0), and Malawi and Botswana, both by 6-0 scorelines.
It was a similar story in 2023 as they again lost all three games, going down to Angola (5-0), Mozambique (3-1) and Zambia (5-1).
But growth in the women’s game has been picking up pace and they will be keen to showcase their added quality in the regional championship.
That has been helped by top club Olympic de Moroni competing in the COSAFA Women’s Champions League for a couple of seasons.
The country entered the preliminary competition for the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup, their first appearance, but after a 13-0 loss to powerhouse South Africa in the first leg of their qualifier, did not fulfil the return fixture.
They then did not enter the preliminaries for the 2019 or 2023 World Cups and have also not entered the qualifiers for the African Women’s Cup of Nations.
