Scorchers out of Cosafa despite win

The Scorchers’ campaign at the delayed 2025 Cosafa Women’s Championship ended abruptly yesterday despite a 1-0 victory over Angola in Group A at Old Peter Mokaba Stadium in Limpopo, South Africa. The 2023 champions have finished as runners-up in their group with six points behind hosts South Africa who lead with seven points after yesterday’s one-all draw against bottom-placed Lesotho. Angola have finished third with three points from their victory over Lesotho.

But the battle for the knockout qualification as best runners-up among number two teams was already over even before the Scorchers’ match against Angola kicked off since victory in this match would not have been enough to keep Malawi in contention. The tournament rules state that results against the fourth-placed teams in all the groups do not count in the best runners-up comparison as one of the three groups had a team less. That meant Malawi’s emphatic 8-1 demolition of Lesotho was effectively wiped from the equation.

As a result, Zimbabwe, who defeated Botswana 1-0 earlier in Group B, were leading the best runners up table with an unassailable four points advantage over Malawi. The development seemed to have affected Scorchers who were not as aggressive as they were in the 8-1 massacre of Lesotho. In a match monitored on Cosafa TV, after a stalemate in the first-half, Player of the Match Ireen Khumalo gave the Scorchers the lead in the 77th minute with a long-range free kick from the centre into the net.

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But it was too late as the Malawi National Women’s Football Team 2-0 loss to South Africa in their opening match came back to haunt the Scorchers. In a post-match interview, Scorchers head coach Lovemore Fazili admitted that they had paid the price for losing to South Africa. He, however said the tournament provided a good platform to prepare for next month’s CAF Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (Wafcon) finals set for in Morocco.

He said: “It was good preparations for Wafcon regardless of our failure to qualify for the knockout stage. We have learned something.”

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