Zambia’s Copper Queens advanced to the 2024 COSAFA Women’s Championship semifinals after defeating Comoros 7-0 on Tuesday.
The team, which consisted only of home-based players, took command of the game after just three minutes, winning a penalty when Hadharay was red-carded following a Video Assistant Referee (VAR) review of a foul on Ochumba Lubanji, who went on to miss the spot-kick.
Shortly after that minor setback, Fridah Mukoma opened the scoring in the sixth minute, before Ochumba made up for her missed penalty and doubled the lead four minutes later by dribbling past the Comoros defenders and goalkeeper to tap home from an empty net.
Mukoma scored again in the tenth minute to extend the lead. Following that goal, Regina Chanda joined the scoring frenzy in the 45th minute, netting the fourth goal to end the first half 4-0.
Zambia continued to fire in the second half, and Ochumba scored her second goal of the match in the 61st minute, giving the Copper Queens a comfortable 5–0 lead.
Florence Mwila’s side maintained their dominance over ten-player Comoros, with Mukoma completing her hat-trick in the 75th minute.
Charity Mubanga capped off the scoring in the 81st minute with an easy tap-in from close range, bringing the final score to 7-0.
Copper Queens To Face Malawi In The Semis
Zambia will face Malawi on Thursday, 31 October 2024, at 12:00 CAT. The match will be a repeat of last year’s final, which saw Malawi’s Scorcher beat the Copper Queens to win the championship for the first time.
Copper Queens coach, Mwila, is aware of the task ahead.
“Going into the semifinals, it’s going to be even tougher,” Mwila admitted. “We’re meeting Malawi again. It’s just like a repeat of last year. All the teams were meetings, like a repeat of last year. But then we have new players, and different approaches.”
Mwila also admitted that the pressure to outperform Lovemore Fazili’s Malawi team, who defeated her in the final last year, is there, but her girls are prepared.
“The pressure is there because we know how strong the team [Malawi] is. But then that doesn’t let us put our guard down. We also have prepared to go and withstand that pressure,” she said confidently.
“So the girls are already prepared for it and yeah, we’ll go into the game knowing that they’re playing a tough team. We not underrating them and we will not relax as well because they’re tough. We will also give them a tough game.”
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