With less than two weeks to go before the Australia & New Zealand Women’s World Cup kicks off, the Zambian team is honing their skills.
For their first participation in this competition, the Copper Queens will face the Japanese, world champions of 2011 at the opening of Group C, before meeting Spain and Costa Rica. The coach hopes his team will do well.
“It shows that football has improved in Southern Africa. If we manage to qualify for the World Cup, it is a sign that we are progressing we are not the only country to represent this region since South Africa has also qualified for the World Cup”, said Bruce Mwape, coach of the Zambian team.
Zambia can count on the return of their captain Barbra Banda, who scored six goals in three matches at the Tokyo 2021 Olympic Games.
The small gray area on the board, the accusations of the newspaper “The Guardian” against Bruce Mwape a few days before the world. He is accused of forcing players to have sex with him if they wanted to keep their place in the team.
The federation looks gray and evokes an old story, for which investigations have already been opened last year. Bruce Mwape should, except for a last-minute change, lead the Cooper Queens to their very first World Cup.
Four countries will represent the continent, Morocco, Zambia, South Africa, and Nigeria. The competition starts on July 20th.
Soukaina Sghir