Zambia Women’s National Team coach Bruce Mwape has remained optimistic about the Copper Queens chances of qualifying to the quarterfinals of the Paris 2024 Olympics despite suffering a 3-0 loss at the hands of four-time champions USA.
A brace by Mallory Swanson and a Trinity Rodman goal gave the USA maximum points in a match that the Copper Queens played one hour with 10 players following Pauline Zulu’s red card inside 30 minutes.
“Fans shouldn’t lose hope, we still have two more games to go, we can still qualify to the quarterfinals, and it’s not the end of the world. It was a bad result but the girls did well especially in the second half. We made a lot of mistakes in the first half and they capitalized on those mistakes but the second half, we picked up,” Mwape observed.
“We need to strategize once again, because we need to start creating chances unlike the way we played the USA game and am sure we will be able to carry the day.”Mwape already has his sights on facing Australia on Sunday. The Matildas lost 3-0 to Germany making Sunday’s match more crucial than ever.
“The morale is still high. When we conceded three goals in the first half, we thought it was going to be worse in the second half but we changed the tactics, things happened and we will stick to the same tactics so that we get a win in the second game,” Mwape said.
“(Defender) Esther (Muchinga) played well because she came in the first half, she never made mistakes in the second half she did well and we will stick to the same player.”
The top two teams after matchday three will progress to the quarterfinals and will be joined by two best third-place teams to the tournament’s knockout stage.
Zambia is playing in its second consecutive Olympics after having debuted in the 2021 at the Tokyo 2020 Games.
