Zambia Women national team’s dreams of qualifying to the Ghana 2018 African Women Championships suffered a huge blow after they were handed a one nil loss by Zimbabwe at Nkoloma Stadium in Lusaka.
Zambia started the match on a high note and was the better side for the opening 15 minutes. Star striker Barbara Banda and Misozi Zulu both came close but could not beat Maleta Muwundwa in the Zimbabwe goal.
Zimbabwe took the lead against the run of play in the 17th minute as Rutendo Makore capitalised on a defensive error to put the Mighty Warriors in the lead.
Zambia were forced to make a substitution in the 30th minute due to an injury to Barbara who was replaced by Theresa Chewe. Mary Mwakapila came close three minutes later but could not also beat Muwundwa as Zimbabwe held on to go to the break in the lead.
In the second half Zambia came back with full force and dominated play creating a number of chances but poor finishing let them down. On the end it was Hazel Nali keeping Shepolopolo in the match as Zimbabwe had two chances to increase the lead but the Shepolopolo number one was equal to the task on both occasions. Zimbabwe’s defense was compact as they managed to deal with Zambia’s attacks one after the other to win the match by a lone goal.
Speaking after the match Shepolopolo coach Bruce Mwape said he was not disapointed as his team played well and only made one mistake which cost them.
[perfectpullquote align=”full” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]” I personally am not dissapointed with the performance of the team. We started well and just made one mistake that they used to score. In the second half we created a lot of chances but somehow failed to utilize those chances,”[/perfectpullquote]
He said.
The two teams will go head to head again on Sunday, June 10th in Harare in the second leg with the winner over two legs set to book a place at the continental show piece set for Ghana later this year.
