Despite her team suffering elimination from the 2024 Paris Olympics race in the qualifiers following their 4-3 aggregate loss to Zambia’s Copper Queens, Nora Hauptle is proud of the progress she has made so far with the Black Queens of Ghana.
The Swiss, who went ten matches unbeaten before losing to Namibia and Zambia, praised her team after their 3-3 draw with the Copper Queens on Wednesday in Ndola in the Olympic qualifiers.
“My team is brave; my team is playing football; my team is fighting; I cannot blame them,” Hauptle stated after getting eliminated from the Olympic qualifiers. “Sometimes it’s hard; we did everything and then conceded a free kick and a red card in the last minute, such things happen; of course, we would have loved to take it. All in all, it was disappointing for us, but kudos to Zambia.”
Hauptle mentioned that she studied Zambia’s team and appreciated the individual brilliance of their squad.
“As I told you in the pre-press conference, I watched all 21 games for Zambia last year. I know every player inside and out, and we did a very good analysis with our staff, like we always do.
“Zambia has fantastic individual players. They can make a difference at a very high level in transitional moments. [Barbra] Banda, [Racheal] Kundananji, and also in the midfield, [Grace] Chanda who was missing.”
‘Zambia need to adjust some tactical screws’ – Hauptle
The 40-year-old tactician feels that despite Zambia having experience and good players, they need to work on their tactics.
“Zambia has experience now from the Olympics and World Cup. We miss those games in Ghana. The more you play those games, the more you learn to manage them and also to handle them emotionally, and so on.
“So we are just learning but you have this experience already. I believe you can get very far with this team, even in the top ten in the world but you need to adjust some tactical screws. There are still things to work on on this team but kudos to a fantastic team. I think it’s nice to coach them; let’s see how they will perform at the Olympics.”
Hauptle will now focus on the 2024 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations. The tournament will be staged in Morocco this year on yet-to-be-announced dates.
Bruce Mwape and his lasses, on the other hand, will look to take down a revitalized Morocco side and qualify for the Olympics for the second time in a row, having previously represented Africa solo at the 2020 Tokyo Games.
