The curtain has officially closed on the ninth edition of the FIFA Women’s World Cup, Australia and New Zealand 2023, with African teams giving a historic performance at the global stage.
CAFONline.com takes a look at some of the key highlights and individual performances of the teams that flew the African flag.
The Super Falcons, who were making their ninth FIFA Women’s World Cup™ appearance gave yet another memorable display all the way to the round of 16 where they narrowly lost out 4-2 on penalties after a goalless tie with England.
A lot of doubt was cast upon the Nigerians who were drawn in a tough Group B that consisted of Australia, Canada and Republic of Ireland where the finished second with one of the tournament upsets being their 3-2 victory over co-hosts, Australia in front of their home crowd.
The TotalEnergies Women’s Africa Cup of Nations finalists, South Africa and Morocco also showed their mettle at the world stage, proving that the African game does indeed deserve a seat amongst the best in the world.
Looking at the reigning African champions South Africa, they displayed a much improved performance from their first appearance in France four years ago with the deadly duo of Thembi Kgatlana and Hildah Magaia leading their attack.
After a disappointing loss in their opening game against Sweden which was followed by a draw against Argentina, Banyan Banyana soldiered on and stunned Italy to a 3-2 victory to secure a historic round of 16 qualification were they fell short against the Netherlands.
Tournament debutants, Morocco were looking at emulating their male counterparts’ impressive run in Qatar and were not too far off as they did the unthinkable by reaching the round of 16 in their first appearance.
After their heavy 6-0 defeat to Germany, the Atlas Lionesses showed tenacity to edge Korea Republic 1-0 in their next game before securing a passage to the round of 16 following a similar scoreline over Colombia.
The TotalEnergies Women’s AFCON silver-medallists bowed out of the competition at the hands of France but certainly made their mark as debutants.
Looking at Zambia, the southern African nation may have not advanced to the finals but had their equal share of honours when they got their FIFA Women’s World Cup victory over Costa Rica in their final group match with Barbara Banda scoring the 1000th goal of the competition.
Individual Brilliance:
There were six African players named Player of the Match by the FIFA Technical Study Group
- Nigerian goalkeeper Chiamaka Nnadozie (against Canada)
- Morocco’s Ibtissam Jraidi (against the Republic of Korea)
- South Africa’s Thembi Kgatlana (against Argentina)
- South Africa’s Hildah Magaia (against Italy)
- Morocco’s Anissa Lahmari (against Colombia)
- Zambia’s Barbra Banda (against Costa Rica)
Other noticeable performance came from the likes of Zambia’s Rachael Kundananji, who clocked the fastest recorded speed of the competition at 33.2 km/h, while Nigeria’s Christy Ucheibe was amongst the top 5 defenders of the tournament with 36 successful tackles made.
CAFONLINE