Africa's Fantastic Four
Olympic qualifiers serve up more thrills as Zambia and Nigeria qualify but is this the last time the best four teams face off?
Some players love certain competitions. Cristiano Ronaldo, the Champions League, Samuel Eto’o, the AFCON, Miroslav Klose, the World Cup. But perhaps eclipsing them all is Zambia’s Barbra Banda and her love for the Olympics.
In Tokyo 2020, a 21-year-old Banda burst onto the world scene, scoring not one, but two hat-tricks as the Copper Queens came third in their group. In 2024 she has reignited her love for the Olympics by once again dragging Zambia to sports greatest competition.
In February, she broke the hearts of a reinvigorated Ghana team with a 96th minute freekick in Ndola. Her second goal of the match brought the home side level at 3-3 but with a 1-0 advantage from the first leg, it was enough to send the Copper Queens through to the final round of qualifying against Morocco.
After a 2-1 loss at home and a difficult trip to Rabat, the Zambians looked dead and buried until Banda’s 39th minute finish brought them level. Once again, the new Orlando Pride star left it late (the 107th minute this time) to score the decisive goal and take the Zambians back to the tournament where Banda and the Copper Queens made their names.
They will be joined in France by Nigeria who scraped past African champions South Africa 1-0 on aggregate after holding Banyana Banyana to a 0-0 draw in Pretoria. That win takes Nigeria to their first Olympics in 16 years, a truly remarkable fact given their dominance at the WAFCON and World Cup.
The Olympic qualifiers were thrilling and once again showed how far ahead of the competition and how closely matched these four nations are they are, despite how new these rivalries are.
Prior to 2018 Nigeria stood alone at the pinnacle of African football. The Super Falcons had won 11 WAFCON titles from 13 and had qualified for every single World Cup. But at that 2018 tournament, the first cracks in their armour were forming. Despite winning the tournament, they lost in the group stage to South Africa and in the final were outplayed by Desiree Ellis’ side and had to rely on penalties to win through.
In 2019, both teams fell to shock defeats in Olympic qualifying, allowing a relative newcomer in Zambia to enter the fray, led by two of the most exciting attackers in world football, Barbra Banda and Racheal Kundananji (now the two most expensive players in world football).
Then in 2022, from out of nowhere, Morocco joined the top table. Having failed to qualify for a tournament since 2000, the Atlas Lionesses shook the African landscape when they beat Nigeria in the semi-finals on penalties on the same day that South Africa beat Zambia by the same margin.
By virtue of making it to the semi-finals, the four teams became Africa’s representatives at the 2023 World Cup and boy, how did they represent. All four teams won a game in their group. South Africa pushed Sweden until the last minute and beat Italy in the last minute of the game to reach the round of 16 for the first time. Debutants Morocco reached the same stage, knocking out European Championship finalists Germany in the process.
Nigeria did even better, beating hosts Australia in the group stage, going undefeated in their group before losing out to European Champions England on penalties in one of the games of the tournament.
The women’s football landscape in Africa is now arguably the most competitive in the world. Unfortunately, these qualifiers might be the last we see of this brilliant rivalry for the next two years.
That is because despite being four months into 2024, we still have no idea when the 2024 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations will be.
It’s a pretty terrible excuse on many levels.
For starters, the tournaments don’t actually overlap. The Olympics don’t start until the 25th of July. The 2022 WAFCON didn’t finish until the 23rd of July and so even if they didn’t move the tournament forward by a week or two this year, the dates wouldn’t clash. And even if they did, CAF sacrificing it’s premier competition for the sake of two teams that are going to the Olympics seems pretty poor fare.
CAF seemed to be under the impression that they could potentially host the tournament later in the year, like they did in 2016 when the WAFCON took place in November and December.
Unfortunately, this time, FIFA is not playing ball and haven’t given clearance for the WAFCON to be held then. The main reason being that clubs would never stand for losing their best players for a month in the middle of the season with only a few months’ notice. Once upon a time, African players were playing for small clubs with little money and so could be pushed around, but no longer. Bay City FC are hardly going to give up their two most prized possessions in Kundananji and Asisat Oshoala without a fight.
Sadly, there is also little pressure on CAF to host the WAFCON.
After hosting a fantastic WAFCON in 2022 Morocco were given the hosting rights to the 2024 edition, among rumours that no other country was stepping up to host the tournament.
Since they were awarded the rights though, Morocco have gone on a frenzy of bringing football to the kingdom. They hosted the 2023 Club World Cup; they were awarded the 2025 men’s AFCON and the big one – co-hosting the 2030 World Cup. They are even hosting the 2024 Futsal AFCON at the moment.
This seemingly has left Morocco with a bit of tournament fatigue, and as one of the tournaments they offered to host for CAF more as a favour, it seems that the Moroccans were happy to let the tournament slide. There is also the added element that being the globally focused nation that they are, the Moroccan Federation would likely put more energy into playing at the Olympics than the WAFCON. Now, thanks to Banda, they aren’t in either tournament.
It seems that now women’s football in Africa is at its highest point ever it is being handicapped more than ever.
I think they should just host the tournament November anyway. Forget fifa