{"id":61843,"date":"2024-12-13T19:25:03","date_gmt":"2024-12-13T17:25:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ssschoolsplus.co.za\/?p=61843"},"modified":"2024-12-13T19:25:03","modified_gmt":"2024-12-13T17:25:03","slug":"zambia-completes-the-double-at-u17-cosafa-tournaments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/?p=61843","title":{"rendered":"Zambia completes the double at u17 Cosafa tournaments"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_61847\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-61847\" style=\"width: 400px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-61847\" src=\"https:\/\/ssschoolsplus.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/u17-girls-Zambia-national-team-400x249.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"249\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-61847\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Zambia celebrates after the Cosafa u17 Girls&#8217; Championship final between Zambia and Lesotho on 13 December 2024 at the UJ Soweto Stadium. Photo: Sydney Mahlangu \/BackpagePix.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>Zambia<\/strong> completed the double at the <strong>u17 Cosafa tournaments<\/strong>, winning both the girls&#8217; and boys&#8217; competitions in Johannesburg on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>The u17 Zambian girls&#8217; team ran riot against Lesotho, thrashing their opponents 15-0 in the final at the <strong>University of Johannesburg (UJ) Soweto Campus<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>It was a nightmare Friday the 13th for Lesotho as the <strong>Copper Princesses<\/strong> raked in the goals, not letting up until the final whistle sounded.<\/p>\n<p>With the victory and the title, Zambia proved why they are currently the leading nation in development football in the SADC region.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mercy Chipasula<\/strong> scored a jaw-dropping seven goals in the title decider, while <strong>Masela Sekeseke <\/strong>weighed in with a hat-trick. <strong>Hellen Banda<\/strong> grabbed a double, and <strong>Wendy Mwikisa<\/strong>, <strong>Janet Chirwa<\/strong>, and <strong>Lilian Mwenda<\/strong> all scored a goal as Zambia lifted the winner&#8217;s trophy with a superlative effort.<\/p>\n<p>The Zambian boys&#8217; team followed in the footsteps of their female counterparts, capturing the <strong>TotalEnergies u17 CAF African Cup of Nations | Cosafa qualifier <\/strong>with a hard-fought 2-1 defeat of <strong>Angola<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>In an entertaining and competitive clash, the Angolans battled tooth and nail to pull off an upset.\u00a0However, <strong>Abel Nyirongo<\/strong> gave the Zambians the lead after they had dominated the first half. But, with two minutes to go to the break, <strong>Omar Oliveira&#8217;s<\/strong> freekick deflected off a defender and went into the back of the net to pull the Angolans level.<\/p>\n<p>The Zambian domination continued in the second half, and it appeared to have paid dividends in the 70th minute when <strong>Emmanuel Mbuti<\/strong> was brought down inside the box by <strong>Josemar Vicente<\/strong>. Abel Nyirongo stepped up to take the shot, but his effort was rejected by <strong>Gelson Dala<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Zambia&#8217;s control of the contest was eventually rewarded, though, when <strong>Jimmy Banda<\/strong> played Nyirongo in for his second goal to complete the Cosafa double for his country.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Awards: TotalEnergies u17 CAF African Cup of Nations | Cosafa qualifier<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Player of the Tournament: Mapalo Simute (Zambia)<br \/>\nGolden Boot: Abel Nyirongo (Zambia)<br \/>\nGolden Glove: Geslon Dala (Angola)<br \/>\nFair Play Prize: Angola<\/p>\n<p><strong>u17 Girls&#8217; Cosafa Tournament<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Player of the Tournament: Mercy Chipasula (Zambia)<br \/>\nGolden Boot: Mercy Chipasula (Zambia)<br \/>\nGolden Glove: Loveness Chingwele (Zambia)<br \/>\nFair Play Prize: Lesotho<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Zambia completed the double at the u17 Cosafa tournaments, winning both the girls&#8217; and boys&#8217; competitions in Johannesburg on Friday. The u17 Zambian girls&#8217; team ran riot against Lesotho, thrashing their opponents 15-0 in the final at the University of Johannesburg (UJ) Soweto Campus. It was a nightmare Friday the 13th for Lesotho as the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":61847,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61843\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}