The Zambia women’s national team will kick of their 2022 Cosafa women’s championship today against Namibia in group B as captain Barbra Banda is expected to return to the squad after a five months absence from competitive football.

The copper queens will look to start their  campaign at the Cosafa women’s championship on a high with almost all the members of the squad that reached the WAFCON semifinals and qualified to the World cup for the first time available for selection.

Coach Bruce Mwape has also declared her charges ready for the match but says it will not be an easy game.

I don’t think it will be easy because we are meeting Namibia again after beating them when we were qualifying to the Africa cup, so it wont be all that easy but our girls are ready for day’s match.

Zambia and Namibia last met during the 2022 Women’s Africa cup of nations qualifiers in a match which ended 1-1 with Copper queens qualifying to the WAFCON finals on away goal rule, thanks to a Ximola Mapape late equalizer.

The copper queens will go into the match with a 100% win record over Namibia as they have never lost a Cosafa cup match to them.

Overall, the two have met 7 times across all competitions and Zambia has been the dominant side winning 3 games and drawing 2 while Namibia has only managed to win 2 games.

Meanwhile Lesotho who are also in group B with Zambia and Namibia have topped the group after beating Eswatini 3-0 to earn the “kingdom” bragging rights at the Cosafa cup.