Scorchers in do-or-die  Cosafa battle

The Scorchers must beat Angola this afternoon in their last Cosafa Women’s Championship Group A clash to have a realistic chance of progressing to the semi-finals as best runners-up across three groups. The Malawi Women’s National Football Team coach Lovemore Fazili said in an interview yesterday that his charges are aware of the game’s importance and will do their best to secure victory. “Angola are no pushovers, but we have to find a way to outsmart them.

The entry point into the semi-finals is narrow and we have to dig deeper to win this match at all cost,” he said. Apart from riding on the emphatic 8-1 thrashing of Lesotho in their second match on Saturday, the Scorchers have a statistical advantage over Angola having won two and drawn once in their last three meetings. The Scorchers won by 2-0 margins in Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (Wafcon) qualifiers’ second leg last October and the Cosafa Women’s Championships in 2021.

The two teams also settled for a goalless draw in the Wafcon qualifiers first leg last October. Currently, the two sides are tied on three points after two games each, but the Scorchers are second in the four-team group due to a better goal difference. South Africa’s Banyana Banyana have already qualified as group leaders with six points as they cannot be overtaken due to the 11-team competition’s head-to-head rule.

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The hosts beat both Malawi and Angola. On the other hand, Lesotho anchor the group without a point and will play South Africa in their last group fixture. According to the tournament’s rules, group standings are decided in the first instance by the number of points a team has obtained in all games, but where two teams are level on points, then the first tie-breaker is the number of points obtained in matches between them, that is, the head-to-head rule.

To finish as the best runners-up across the three groups, the Scorchers have to beat Angola and hope that the calculations will weigh in their favour when their tally is compared with second-best teams of other groups. Scorchers striker Deborah Henry, who scored a hat-trick and was named player of the match in her debut against Lesotho, believes she can increase her tally this afternoon. “We know the importance of this match and we will give our all,” she said.

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