{"id":34923,"date":"2022-11-18T23:32:03","date_gmt":"2022-11-18T23:32:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/defending-champions-zambia-aim-for-back-to-back-regional-wins"},"modified":"2022-11-19T00:01:12","modified_gmt":"2022-11-19T00:01:12","slug":"defending-champions-zambia-aim-for-back-to-back-regional-wins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/defending-champions-zambia-aim-for-back-to-back-regional-wins","title":{"rendered":"Defending champions Zambia aim for back-to-back regional wins"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Zambia. <\/strong><\/span>Zambia are the only other nation from the COSAFA region after South Africa to appear at the FIFA Women\u2019s Under-17 World Cup having contested the 2014 finals in Costa Rica.<\/p>\n

They will dream of a return and will look to the COSAFA Women\u2019s Under-17 Championship at the Region 5 Games Lilongwe 2022 from December 1-10 to lay the platform for building a squad towards that.<\/p>\n

They managed a gold medal last time out in a shortened competition that contained only three teams after the Omicron variant of COVID-19 played havoc with the field.<\/p>\n

It was a breeze too as they beat Botswana (3-1) and Namibia (2-0) in the group stages, before they met Botswana again in the final and ran out 4-0 winners.<\/p>\n

It was a welcome win after they had to settle for the silver medal in the previous tournament, defeated on penalties by Tanzania in the final after a 1-1 draw. They had looked on course for gold but conceded a penalty late on and then went down via spot-kicks.<\/p>\n

It was still a successful tournament for the side in 2020 as they won all four of their pool matches, including a 2-1 victory over hosts South Africa. That was followed by a group stage win over Tanzania by the same scoreline, and victories over Comoros (3-0) and Zimbabwe (5-2).<\/p>\n

Zambia managed a bronze at the inaugural COSAFA Women\u2019s Under-17 Championship in Mauritius in 2019, as they showed plenty of guts to earn a point in their pool opener against eventual winners Uganda, a game that finished 1-1.<\/p>\n

That was followed by big wins over Comoros Islands (15-0) and Mauritius (8-0) to earn a place in the semifinals. There they came up against hosts and old nemesis South Africa, but lost 2-1, before going on to claim a 3-0 success against Botswana in the third-place play-off.<\/p>\n

It means they have won bronze, silver and gold in successive years, and will now be looking for back-to-back triumphs after being drawn in Group B in Lilongwe.<\/p>\n

They face Botswana again in their opener on December 1, before a second pool game against Comoros four days later. The top two teams in each pool advance to the semifinals.<\/p>\n

Zambia first entered the running for World Cup qualification in 2008 but lost 6-0 on aggregate to Ghana in the preliminary round, and then skipped the 2010 qualifiers.<\/p>\n

Zambia defeated Botswana 7-1 in the 2012 qualifiers, but then lost by the same margin on aggregate to Nigeria in the next stage. They beat Botswana again 8-3 on aggregate in the first stage ahead of the 2014 finals and were a surprise 6-4 aggregate winners over South Africa following a 3-3 home draw and a 3-1 away win.<\/p>\n

They sealed their place in Costa Rica, where they put in a decent showing. They lost their first two games to Italy (0-2) and Venezuela (0-4) but did beat the hosts 2-1 in their last match.<\/p>\n

Zambia withdrew from the 2016 qualifiers ahead of their tie with South Africa, and then were 6-5 aggregate losers to Botswana despite leading 5-2 from the first leg.<\/p>\n

They had a walkover against Namibia in the latest round of qualifying, but then lost 3-2 on aggregate to South Africa despite winning the first leg 2-0 at home.<\/p>\n

The final tournament was ultimately cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. They had a walkover against Namibia in the last set of qualifiers this year, but then lost 5-0 on aggregate to Cameroon in the next round.<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About Zambia<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Zambia. Zambia are the only other nation from the COSAFA region after South Africa to appear at the FIFA Women\u2019s Under-17 World Cup having contested the 2014 finals in Costa Rica. They will dream of a return and will look to the COSAFA Women\u2019s Under-17 Championship at the Region 5 Games Lilongwe 2022 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":34922,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,17,248],"tags":[234,235,233],"class_list":["post-34923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-sport","category-to-homepage","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-zambia","tag-zambia"],"yoast_head":"\nDefending champions Zambia aim for back-to-back regional wins - Zambia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Zambia are the only other nation from the COSAFA region after South Africa to appear at the FIFA Women\u2019s Under-17 World ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/defending-champions-zambia-aim-for-back-to-back-regional-wins\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Defending champions Zambia aim for back-to-back regional wins\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Zambia are the only other nation from the COSAFA region after South Africa to appear at the FIFA Women\u2019s Under-17 World ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/defending-champions-zambia-aim-for-back-to-back-regional-wins\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Zambia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-11-18T23:32:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-11-19T00:01:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/zambia\/sites\/35\/2022\/11\/postQueueImg_1668801751.98.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"768\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"432\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/defending-champions-zambia-aim-for-back-to-back-regional-wins#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/defending-champions-zambia-aim-for-back-to-back-regional-wins\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Defending champions Zambia aim for back-to-back regional wins\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-11-18T23:32:03+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-11-19T00:01:12+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/defending-champions-zambia-aim-for-back-to-back-regional-wins\"},\"wordCount\":596,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/defending-champions-zambia-aim-for-back-to-back-regional-wins#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/zambia\/sites\/35\/2022\/11\/postQueueImg_1668801751.98.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Zambia\",\"Zambia\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"sport\",\"to-homepage\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/defending-champions-zambia-aim-for-back-to-back-regional-wins#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/defending-champions-zambia-aim-for-back-to-back-regional-wins\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/defending-champions-zambia-aim-for-back-to-back-regional-wins\",\"name\":\"Defending champions Zambia aim for back-to-back regional wins - 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