COSAFA TSG Head happy with improvements in U17 Women’s tournament

Speaking exclusively to SABC Sport after the recent 2024 edition held in Johannesburg, Masango says every year presents the competition with something to look forward to.

“For starters, the number of goals improved drastically, from 75 in 2022 in Lilongwe, Malawi to 109 in the recent tournament. Yes, there were more teams in 2024 but be that as it may, the goalscoring spree continued – and that is a lot of improvement,” said Masango.

“Teams like Zambia, South Africa, Madagascar and Botswana were more organised and structured – also in the area of individual technique and tactics, their players were brilliant.”

What was even more exciting and fulfilling for Masango was seeing most countries at the tournament being led by women on their technical team – South Africa,   Zambia, Botswana,  Malawi, Madagascar,  Mauritius, Mozambique and  Zimbabwe.

“Eight of the 12 coaches in the tournament were female, which is a rise on the number of female head coaches active in national teams in the COSAFA region and speaks directly to women empowerment,” added Masango.

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The former University of the Western Cape (UWC) and University of Johannesburg (UJ Ladies) assistant coach was particularly impressed by Zambia who won the 2024 COSAFA U17 Women’s Championship without breaking a sweat.

“I think what is happening in the Zambian women’s football is great, this is a Member Association that is following player development pathway to the T. And they are also the only team that have participated in all the past four tournaments – 2024 South Africa, 2022 Malawi, 2021 Lesotho and 2020 South Africa - which also speaks to consistency,” said Masango.

“Zambia performed brilliantly at this recently ended edition. They are a team that knows how to manage transitions, they were well conditioned and showed great amount of teamwork and confidence. One also has to acknowledge that having participated at the 2024 FIFA U17 Women’s World Cup played a key role as they used all that experience to good effect, becoming the highest scoring team in the COSAFA. For me, they are the team to look up to in their age group in this region.”

With the FIFA U17 Women’s World Cup qualifiers coming up in January, Masango hopes the teams have taken heed of some lessons.

“If most teams use the lessons learned from the 2024 COSAFA tournament, I think this region stands a good chance of doing well. But it will be important for countries to get more camps, and where possible, add international friendly matches to their schedules because the more they play together the better they become,” concluded Masango.

“In addition, games build team confidence and raise the level of understanding and trust among each other during matches – which is exactly the reason Zambia was outstanding in the 2024 competition. They came here after playing three top class matches at the biggest stage, and nothing beats that experience.”