African teams at the ongoing 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup which started last week Thursday in Australia and New Zealand have had a slow start.
Nigeria which is ranked 40th in the world managed to hold Canada, which is ranked 7th in the world to a goalless draw in their group B opening match
On Saturday, Zambia, which made its debut at the World Cup was thumped 5 – 0 by Japan in their group C opener.
Thereafter on Sunday, South Africa was the first African team to score at the World Cup in their opening group G match against Sweden. However, although South Africa had an early lead they failed to hold on which later saw them being edged by Sweden 2 – 1.
It was a match which the current African champions should have won despite the FIFA rankings against it, with Sweden being ranked 3rd and South Africa 54th.
“We had a game plan and I thought it worked throughout, we were defensively very sound. We knew that they were going to be a challenge at set-pieces and I thought we handled that very well. Our transitions could have been a lot better and our decisions in the final third, if they were better, we would be speaking a different result now.
However, even though we lost, we are very proud of the way we played. We might have not had the type of preparation we wanted, but the group of players showed resilience,” said Desiree Ellis, the coach of South Africa.
On Monday, Morocco which was also making its debut at the World Cup, was thrashed 6 – 0 by Germany in their opening group H encounter.
To date, Nigeria is the only African team that has managed to secure a point and it will be hoping to boost that when it faces-off against the co-hosts Australia on Thursday in its second group B match.
Prior to that, Zambia on Wednesday, will be looking at turning around its fortunes when it plays its second group C encounter against Spain.
On Friday, South Africa will also be hoping to acquire the maximum points when it embarks on its second group G encounter against Argentina.
Lastly, debutante, Morocco will tussle it off against a formidable South Korea in its second group H encounter.
