Africa-Press – Eswatini. SITSEBE featured in the early days of the Hollywoodbets COSAFA Women’s Championships and after a brief hiatus has now returned to play in the last five instalments of the annual showpiece competition.
The senior women national team is awaiting their first qualification to the knockout stages but will hope to make steady progress towards that and could perhaps spring a surprise this year. Sitsebe are in camp for this year’s tournament billed for the Nelson Mandela Bay.
Eswatini claimed a 3-0 win over Botswana in their second match in 2002, their first win on their maiden appearance, but also lost out to Mozambique (0-2) and South Africa (0-4) to finish last in their pool.
The nation’s pride coach Smephi Mamba said they were going to the tournament to groom a future team for the country. “We are not going there to compete but to groom for the future and hopefully start competing next year.
We are also looking forward for the tournament even though we will not be having a full strength squad since most of players are having work commitments,” she said. They were back at the finals in 2006, but this time lost to Namibia (0-6) and Zambia (0-7) in what was a difficult campaign.
The country skipped the 2011 tournament but returned for the 2017 finals in Zimbabwe, where a 3-0 win over Mauritius was followed by a 2-2 draw with Mozambique and they were denied a first ever place in the semi-finals after a 1-0 loss to East Africa guest nation Kenya.
Improved
The side were much improved in 2019 as they won two of their three games, but still narrowly missed the semi-finals.
A 3-1 victory over Mozambique was followed by a thumping 4-0 success over Angola but they came unstuck against Zimbabwe going down 7-0 in their final pool match to bow out.
They could not match that in 2020 having been drawn in a tough first round pool, where they beat Comoros Islands 4-2, but then lost to South Africa (5-0) and Angola ( 4-3).
It was a tale of woe for the side in 2001 as they lost all three games and conceded 11 goals in the process. A 5-0 defeat to Zambia was followed by a 5-1 defeat to Uganda, and then a 1-0 defeat at the hands of Namibia.
SITSEBE COSAFA
CUP HISTORY:
Best finish – Group stages 2002, 2006, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021
FIFA Rankings – 171
Last Five tournaments
2017- Group stages
2018- Group stages
2019 – Group stages
2020 – Group stages
2021 – Group stages
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