Angola, Botswana, Eswatini HOLLYWOODBETS COSAFA Women’s Championship Profiles

The HOLLYWOODBETS COSAFA Women’s Championship 2025 will be staged in Polokwane, South Africa from February 18-March 1, 2026. It will feature 11 teams and we bring you profiles of three of those sides, Angola, Botswana and Eswatini.

ANGOLA
Best finish: Runners-up (2008)
FIFA Ranking: 155
CAF Ranking: 33
Last five tournaments:
2020 – Group Stage
2021 – Group Stage
2022 – Group Stage
2023 – Group Stage
2024 – Group Stage

Angola will be making a return to the HOLLYWOODBETS COSAFA Women’s Championship for the seventh year running, but have not made it past the group stages in the previous six tournaments.

They had taken a hiatus from the competition before their return in 2019 and have appeared in eight of the 12 previous tournaments overall. This reflects the renewed emphasis being placed on the women’s game in the country after Angola failed to enter the qualifiers for the 2015 and 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cups.

They have previously appeared twice at the TotalEnergies CAF Women’s Africa Cup of Nations. In 1995, they reached the semi-finals but lost 6-4 on aggregate to South Africa. They featured again in 2002, drawing two and losing one of their three first-round matches to finish third in their pool.

Their first appearance at the COSAFA Women’s Championship finals was in 2006, when they lost to Zimbabwe in a first-round tie that was played over two legs.
It was initially a three-team group, but when Mozambique withdrew, Angola and Zimbabwe played two matches against one another, which were won 3-1 and 1-0 by the Mighty Warriors.

They featured again in 2008, this time as hosts, and made it all the way through to the final against what was essentially an Under-20 selection from South Africa after a clash of fixtures for the senior national team.

The South Africans still proved too powerful, claiming a 3-1 victory in the final of a competition in which Noko Matlou scored 12 goals.

Angola did not appear again until the 2019 championship, but found the going tough, winning just one of their three pool matches. They opened the tournament with a 4-1 loss to Zimbabwe, followed by a 4-0 defeat to Eswatini.

They regained some pride with a 3-1 victory over rivals Mozambique in their final pool game to finish third in Group C.

They returned again in 2020 and, following a 2-0 opening loss to South Africa, managed a 1-1 draw with the Comoros Islands and a thrilling 4-3 victory over Eswatini.

They could not advance past the group stages in 2021, drawing with Mozambique (2-2) and South Africa (0-0), but losing to eventual finalists Malawi (2-0) to bow out at the first stage.

They collected four points in 2022 with a win over Mauritius (3-0), a draw with Mozambique (1-1) and a loss to South Africa (3-0), which was enough for third place in the pool.

In 2023, they won one of their three matches, beating Comoros 5-0 but losing to Zambia (3-1) and Mozambique (1-0).

They lost both matches in a three-team group in 2024, going down to Zambia (3-0) and Comoros (3-1).

BOTSWANA
Best finish: Second (2020)
FIFA Ranking: 147
CAF Ranking: 28
Last five tournaments:
2020 – Runners-Up
2021 – Group Stage
2022 – Group Stage
2023 – Group Stage
2024 – Group Stage

Botswana were HOLLYWOODBETS COSAFA Women’s Championship finalists in 2020 but fell just short, the closest they have come to lifting the trophy.

They progressed to the decider from a three-team first-round pool with a pair of 1-0 victories over Tanzania and Zimbabwe, before edging Zambia in a tight semi-final.

That set up a final against South Africa, but it was the hosts who triumphed 2-1 at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium. It remains The Mares’ best finish at the COSAFA Women’s Championship and capped an excellent tournament overall.

They also reached the semi-finals in 2019 but lost 4-0 to eventual runners-up Zambia. Botswana had gone through the pool stages unbeaten, defeating Namibia (1-0) and Mauritius (3-0), before playing to a 0-0 draw with Zambia.

They then lost the bronze-medal match, going down 3-0 to Zimbabwe.

Those results represented a vast improvement on earlier showings, having failed to win a match in their first three appearances at the tournament in 2002, 2008 and 2011. They broke that drought in 2017 with a 3-0 victory over Lesotho.

They also managed a draw against eventual champions South Africa, but it was not enough to advance from the pool as they finished second.

In 2018, they opened with a 2-0 win over Malawi, lost 1-0 to South Africa and drew 0-0 with Madagascar to again finish runners-up in their pool.

The 2021 tournament proved a disappointment as they did not progress beyond the group phase, despite opening with a thumping 7-0 win over South Sudan, their joint-biggest ever margin of victory alongside a 7-0 win over Mauritius in 2016.

The Mares then lost 2-0 to eventual champions Tanzania and 3-0 to Zimbabwe to miss out on the semi-finals.

They went unbeaten in 2022, but draws with Malawi (1-1) and Tanzania (0-0), along with a 6-0 win over Comoros, were not enough to progress from their pool.

They were again unbeaten in 2023, but once more it was draws that saw them fail to advance. They beat Lesotho 3-0 but were held by Namibia (1-1) and Zimbabwe (1-1) and did not move on from the group stage.

Botswana finished second in their pool in 2024 after another unbeaten campaign, drawing with Malawi (1-1) and Madagascar (0-0) before defeating Mauritius 9-0.

Their very first match in the regional showpiece in 2002 ended in a 14-0 defeat to South Africa.
That opening loss was, in fact, the first fixture ever played by the national team, who are now celebrating 24 years of international football.

ESWATINI
Best finish: Group Stages (2002, 2006, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023)
FIFA Ranking: 184
CAF Ranking: 43
Last five tournaments:
2020 – Group Stage
2021 – Group Stage
2022 – Group Stage
2023 – Group Stage
2024 – Group Stage

Eswatini featured in the early editions of the HOLLYWOODBETS COSAFA Women’s Championship and have missed just one instalment of the regional showpiece, in 2011.

They are still awaiting their first qualification for the knockout stages, and to achieve that this year would represent a major milestone.

Eswatini claimed a 3-0 win over Botswana in their second match in 2002, their first victory on their maiden appearance, but also lost to Mozambique (2-0) and South Africa (4-0) to finish third in their pool.

They returned to the finals in 2006 but endured a difficult campaign, losing to Namibia (6-0) and Zambia (7-0).

The country skipped the 2011 tournament but returned for the 2017 finals in Zimbabwe, where a 3-0 win over Mauritius was followed by a 2-2 draw with Mozambique. They were denied a first-ever place in the semi-finals after a 1-0 defeat to East African guest nation Kenya.

The following year proved a harsher experience as they lost all three matches, going down to East African guests Uganda (4-3), Zimbabwe (3-0) and Namibia (4-1) to finish bottom of the pool.

The side showed marked improvement in 2019, winning two of their three games but still narrowly missing out on the semi-finals.

A 3-1 victory over Mozambique was followed by a thumping 4-0 success over Angola, but they came unstuck against Zimbabwe, going down 7-0 in their final pool match to bow out.

They could not replicate that form in 2020 after being drawn into a tough first-round pool, where they beat the Comoros Islands 4-2 but then lost to South Africa (5-0) and Angola (4-3).

It was a tale of woe in 2021 as they lost all three games and conceded 11 goals in the process. A 5-0 defeat to Zambia was followed by a 5-1 loss to Uganda and then a 1-0 defeat at the hands of Namibia.

The same pattern continued in 2022, as defeats to Lesotho (3-0), Namibia (5-1) and Zambia (2-0) resulted in another first-round exit. In 2023, they beat Madagascar 2-1 in their opener but then lost to Malawi (8-0) and South Africa (3-0) in a challenging pool.

They won one of their three matches in 2024, thrashing Seychelles 6-0 before defeats to South Africa (3-0) and Namibia (2-0).