Assessing Africa’s 2023 women’s World Cup
The dust has settled on Africa’s 2023 Women’s World Cup and each of the four teams from the continent will be pleased with their efforts for differing reasons.
Three of them reached the round of 16, and for Zambia there was a maiden World Cup win in their first visit to the global showpiece event.
We provide an assessment of how they fared in Australia and New Zealand.
MOROCCO
Finish: Round of 16
Key player: Anissa Lahmari
Group H position: Second in the pool with six points (W2 L1)
Their results: Morocco started the tournament with a horror 6-0 loss to Germany in which they conceded two own goals and looked completely out of their depth at this level. But to be fair, they pulled it together and secured a pair of 1-0 wins over South Korea and Colombia that booked what had seemed an unlikely passage into the round of 16. There they met France and lost 4-0 as the Europeans had too much pace and flair for Morocco.
Meeting expectations: They exceeded them on debut, and then some. Few outside the camp gave them a chance to get out of their pool, they came into the competition shy of goals and without much of a record against top teams. Their horror loss at the start only confirmed those opinions. But they pulled it off with two solid displays in which they were compact and organised, and can go home with a lot to build on. For Morocco this tournament was a huge success.
What coach Reynald Pedros said: “I am going to congratulate and thank them (the players) because what they have given us in terms of emotions is quite incredible, and then we will get back down to work,. We have the Olympic qualifiers to prepare for and we have gained experience from this. I am really, really proud to be coach of this team because we have
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