Copper Queens of Zambia head coach Nora Häuptle has said her team missed a big opportunity to secure three points against Nigeria’s Super Falcons in Saturday’s WAFCON 2026 Group C encounter.
A first half goal by Asisat Oshoala saw the Super Falcons beat Zambia 1-0 to record their first win of the tournament.
The Super Falcons had to play most parts of the match with 10 players after Tosin Demehin was shown a straight red card for a foul on Barbra Banda.
Despite going a player down the African champions put in a resolute display to see of the Zambians.
Speaking during her post-match press conference Häuptle highlighted some of the mistakes her team made which contributed to their defeat.
“I think we had a lot of control and created a lot of breaks which were stopped by fouls and the red card was correct and Nigeria had a breakthrough from which they scored which was the keeper’s error due to her position,” she said.
Also Read: WAFCON 2026: She Still Got It — CAF Hails Oshoala’s Display In Super Falcons Win Against Zambia
“After the halftime we decided to change the system so we went with 4-4-2, the objective was to dominate with the ball, use our numerical advantage but the issue we had was that we started launching the ball from the defence to the attack which did not help to dominate the game and we did not take control of possession.
“We brought in more skillful players which helped us become better but we didn’t create lots of dangerous chances but we also didn’t allow Nigeria anything so they only scored from one of the two breaks they had. It was in our hands but we did not take our chance to beat Nigeria now we need to focus for the next game and go all out against Malawi.”
Zambia now have it all to do as they will face group leaders Malawi on Wednesday, August 5, and must win and hope the Super Falcons slip up against Egypt.
By James Agberebi
16 Comments
Can you imagine. Instead of her to thank God that Nigeria didn’t beat them more than one goal after the first half red card.
Because of her pride, Zambia is going home at group stage.
Just go and sort Malawi to win them 3-2 and you are good.
That way, Malawi have 5 Goals for in the matches with both Nigeria and your team.
Nigeria 3 goals for and 3 against can’t be improved upon with h2h with both you and Malawi.
That leaves Malawi with 0 GD due to superior GD against us but not exceeding one oh or else that will be -1 for Malawi pushing them to third.
Meanwhile you’ll have the same 3 goals and 3 against like Nigeria and push us out since we can’t and highly unlikely to flog Egypt your +5 goals difference currently.
4 goals for Zambia in this 6 points mix when Nigeria don’t have more than 3 (among them and Zambia proved they can score 4 after 6 against Egypt) means we are so off especially if Malawi has GD still zero by scoring one more goal (remember they already have 3 against us (our total number of goals too)).
Nigeria 3 goals for
Zambia and Malawi (4 goals or more).
Madugu should bow his head in shame if these southern neighbors have “better understanding” of how to progress to the quarter finals.
Cheer up coach.
Gusau and co need to leave our football and what “better” way to do so than Nigeria crashing out of the group stage FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER at WAFCON with the coach of the grannies.
Tueh to NFF
Sly, I understand your fears, but except Nigeria draws with or loses to Egypt, there’s no way we won’t qualify.
Why? Head-to-head will be considered before goal difference, and Zambia’s 6 -0 win over Egypt won’t protect them.
Assuming we beat Egypt, as expected, and get 6 points…
– If Malawi beats or draws with Zambia, they top the group; Zambia stays on 3 or 4 points, and Nigeria on 6 points qualifies in 2nd place.
– If Zambia beats Malawi 3 -2 and all 4 teams tie on 6 points and 0 GD, Malawi will qualify in first place cos of total goals scored: 3 + 3 + 2 = 8.
– The 2nd place will be left between Zambia and Nigeria, in which only head-to-head will count.
– So why not head-to-head between Zambia and Malawi, if Zambia edges that? Cos it’s a 3-way loop. Head-to-head comes into play when 2 teams need to be separated, not 3.
Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but I think this is the match applied.
Kel, you are right.
If Zambia beats Malawi 3-2, Malawi wins the group, Nigeria finishes 2nd, and Zambia goes home:
Because all top 3 teams finish with 6 points, Egypt’s games don’t count. We only look at the matches between the top 3 teams.
1. In their matches against each other, all three teams finish with exactly 3 points and a 0 GD. Because they are all tied, the rule says we must look at Total Goals Scored in these matches.
2. Malawi Wins the Group on Goals Scored
•Malawi scored 5 goals total (3 against Nigeria + 2 against Zambia).
•Nigeria scored 3 goals total (2 against Malawi + 1 against Zambia).
•Zambia scored 3 goals total (0 against Nigeria + 3 against Malawi).
Based on this, Malawi takes 1st place because they have more goals and advances.
Nigeria and Zambia are tied with 3 goals each and 0 GD.
The H2H kicks in, Nigeria takes 2nd place and advances. Zambia finishes 3rd and is eliminated.
The only way Nigeria gets eliminated is if Zambia wins 4-3 or 5-4. or bigger.
“(We)created a lot of breaks which were stopped by fouls”.
Lol. This woman sef. So that was why all your players were simulating for a penalty towards the end of the match?
One thing I’ll give Madugu credit for yesterday was telling his girls to go strength for strength, physical for physical. I was shocked at the work rate of the Falcons, it was as if I was watching a men’s game in terms of sheer stamina, pull outs, head outs, and breaking up play.
Of course, this has been the “secret” weapon of Southern African teams like Zambia and Malawi. To bully our girls with their higher testosterone levels (matching that if elite male athletes), while we relied mostly in skills and silky play.
Yesterday, we simply matched aura for aura and added grit and stamina to our previously only fluid playing style. Egypt too played like women and were bullied and lost 6-0 to a bullish Zambia. Then they switched things up with added stamina against Malawi and contained them to a 3-1 loss.
You go explain taya, Copper Queens of Zambia Coach. Despite the pressure on the SF and the early harshly judged red carding of our SF girl, Losing Demehim- meaning your 11 men-like women like the Barbra Bandas – your team could not hurt our 10 women in almost 60 minutes of football last night.
Congratulations to our Super Falcons, and to Justin Maduga for a job well done in beating again a so-called elite European Coach (swiss born, Nora Häuptle) led Zambians two times in the space of one year. How else would you learn that SF coach Madugu is superior to your coaching ability after thumping you 6-0 in 2 editions with one year?
The Chewing Gum siblings and Banda indeed look like and perform like men.
But are they men? Do they have it between their legs?
If the answer is yes, I will be the first to demand that the players and their countries should be banned for at least 5 yrs.
But if evidence no dey, then we must have a bona fide acceptance of their gender representation. And if they are women, then it’s 11 women vs 11 women. Yes, some women have extraordinary ability. Some are even stronger and faster than men. But, they are still ladies until proven otherwise! Case closed!
As for our qualification chances, I was also wrongly thinking we were out if Malawi and Zambia do Southern African parapo.
But, as Kel explained, due to head to head rules, all we need to do is beat Egypt.
Even if Zambia beat Malawi, as long as Malawi has a superior goals difference to Zambia, they will be ahead of Zambia. And they beat us, so they’re ahead of us due to head to head. So they will top the group. For 2nd place, it will be between Nigeria and Zambia, and since we beat them, we are ahead on head to head.
If we fail to beat Egyot, then we open the door for Zambia, and we head to the airport.
Nigeria beat Zambia.
Malawi beat Nigeria.
If Zambia beat Malawi, all 3 teams would have beaten each other. So how does the head to head rule apply?
If the head to heS rule no longer applies, it could be Malawi heading to the airport at the end of proceedings, due to the superior Zambia goal difference. And if Nigeria beat Egypt by 3 or more goals, our goals difference will be better than Malawi.
So the question again is, does head to head still apply since the 3 top teams all beat each other?
To be safe, Nigeria must beat Egypt by at least 3 goals.
To be safe, Malawi will need to avoid defeat against Zambia.
My fallible opinion.
Una dey do one sided equation disregarding that matches involving the three teams will be prioritized according to goals scored btw them after h2h btw the three teams. Naija for qualify if they had defeated Zambia by 2 outright goals or scored more than a single goal but Una dey here dey lie to Una self.
Make Una just pray say Zambia no win by two goals because Nigeria is coming bek home if that happens because our 1 goal is nonsense even if we score 7 goals against Egypt. Wetin do Una logic?
In the case Zambia,Malawi and Nigeria ties on point,then the bottom of the table (Egypt’s)results against these 3 teams will be removed.
So,results of games from the 3 teams with equal points in the group will decide which two teams qualify’s from the group.
Let say Zambia wins Malawi by 4-3 goals,both teams will qualify ahead of Nigeria because ZAMBIA will have 4 goals for and 4 goals against minus 0.Malawi goes top of the group with 6 goals for 6 against minus 0. Nigeria has already finished at 3 goals for and 3 against minus 0.
Algeria and Austria used similar tactics to knock out Iran from the world cup knockout spot.
The southern africa neighbors can do something like that and the heaven will not fall.
Next time, falcons will take every match serious from the beginning.
We should pray two prayers:
1. The handshake between zam and Malawi don’t work because they too have this calculation.
Alozie and other USA based stars in our team should call chawinga to have mercy on them and play fair
2. Egypt should not lock up shop. Nigeria left it late vs Malawi.
If not for Oshoala “fortuitous” goal, Zambia game would have ended in a draw.
Forget the red card.
Falcons are not in inspiring goal scoring form.
If Egypt play 10-0-0, not forgetting that Madugu love very weird lineup and subs, 6 points we no go see oh.
Egypt rattled Zambia until the goals galore.
I didn’t watch their Malawi match.
We should have buried both Malawi and Zambia since and leave them to fight for second spot since head to head means they will never catch us even if we lose to Egypt.
CAF did so well to not let best 3rd finishers.
Everywhere fit blur on Wednesday night and I will say it serves both us and NFF right if things really go south.
Nothing is impossible.
Who no wan get world cup ticket?
We should take it in good faith should we fail to qualify…
After all,our preparation was shoddy,good preparation is the foundation of tournament success,driven by physical conditioning..
We struggled against Malawi because we weren’t at the right physical conditioning.We were outpaced,outmuscled and outran by the more fitter Malawi ladies…
Against Zambia we improved in our fitness and tactical discipline,which helped us to win.The good thing was we had days of training and bonding.
Should we go past this first round,it will be hard for any team to stop us because our players are improving as the tournament progresses.
That is incorrect. If Zambia wins by a two-goal margin, Malawi goes home because the GD would be -1. The only way Nigeria gets eliminated is if Zambia wins 4-3 or 5-4. or bigger.
It appears my initial permutation is wrong, and Nigeria only needs to win the Egypt match by a single goal and hope Zambia does not beat Malawi by 4 – 3 or more.
Any other lower-scoring result between the neighbors plus a simple Nigeria win guarantees our qualification.
And of course, an exact 4 -3 or 5 – 4 scoreline will raise eyebrows and definitely be investigated for match fixing, with the possibility of an international ban. So that match will be feisty. I see a draw or a 2 -1 scoreline.
@kel, this is from a Zambian on fb just now:
TIME FOR THE CALCULATOR: Copper Queens Must Beat Malawi By At Least 2-0 To Reach The Quarterfinals; Anything Less Means We Are Eliminated
After Zambia’s defeat to Nigeria at the 2026 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (WAFCON), an interesting scenario plays out in which three teams may finish with the same number of points out for which only the top two will proceed to the quarterfinals from Group C.
This is so because Malawi, Nigeria & Zambia can finish with six points apiece. Assuming this is the case, who tops Group C?
CAF tournament rules apply the Head-to-Head rule before the goal difference, goals scored and subsequent other layers of assessment are factored.
It is expected that Nigeria will beat Egypt which takes them to six points and should Zambia beat Malawi, we, too, go to six points to join Malawi.
Three teams on six points will have to be separated by article 71.2 of the tournament regulations to rank the top two who proceed to the last 8 of the tournament.
Article 71.2 will only apply to all matches among the tied three teams, not pairs. This means the results against Egypt falls off regardless of the scoreline each team would have recorded against the North Africans.
So the ranking will be among the three as in who beat whom and it goes in a circle. That is, Zambia beat Malawi (if we win on Wednesday), Malawi beat Nigeria, Nigeria beat Zambia. This means the three teams are tied at three points.
So if the three teams are tied at three points on Head-to-Head basis, the goal difference comes into play.
Goal difference among the trio: Nigeria sit on exactly 0 goal difference (lost to Malawi by one (3-2), beat us by one) — so Zambia’s margin over Malawi decides.
As such, a 1-0 win against Malawi keeps the goal difference level (all at zero goal difference) among the trio because the classification is for the teams concerned as in 71.2.1 which states “matches between the teams concerned”.
Here is a simplified version of goal difference m. Nigeria sits at 3 goals scored and three goals conceded (three against Malawi, they scored two & one against Zambia) which leaves them at zero difference. Malawi is at +1 (they scored 3 and conceded 2 to Nigeria) so if they concede one goal by Zambia, their goal difference will be zero like Nigeria. And Zambia will also be at zero difference (they conceded one by Nigeria and would have scored one against Malawi). As things stand, Zambia is at minus 1 goal difference among the three teams.
When the goal difference is at zero across the three teams, the number of goals scored come into play. Nigeria and Malawi have both scored three goal which means they have the advantage to proceed to the quarterfinals with Malawi topping Group C.
The brutal reality is that such a scenario renders Zambia’s 6-0 win over Egypt useless. Ouchi. This hurts. But those are the rules.