With a cracking voice from a man who was clearly disappointed, Godfrey Sapula gave an honest assessment of his charges after they were knocked out of the 2025 CAF Women’s Champions League COSAFA qualifiers on Friday (29 August 2025).
The 2021 and 2023 winners of this regional tournament were defeated 2-1 by a spirited and determined Zesco Ndola Girls from Zambia, who are making their debut in the competition.
Boitumelo Rabale opened the scoring for the hosts on the stroke of half time, but two goals in the second half by Eneless Phiri and Fridah Kabwe put paid to Sundowns Ladies’ hope of reaching their third final.
“I think we were really poor today if we are honest, we were a shadow ourselves, there was no fluidity in our play, we could not control the ball, we kicked long balls. We understand that sometimes we’re not able to play how you want and it is football we accept that. But again, I think the better team won, they wanted it more, they ran and they fought for everything, they dominated the second balls, they made all the 50/50 situations 60/40 to their advantage, they brought more fight, and I think we didn’t deserve to win,” said a dejected Sapula.
This was the second meeting between the two sides in the tournament with the hosts winning the first encounter 1-0 in another hard-fought battle.
But this time around, the Sundowns Ladies team looked rattled and gifted the two goals to the Zambian side with unfamiliar errors.
Banyana ba Style could, however, have won it in the 81st minute when second half substitute Melinda Kgadiete was set free on goal, and with the goalkeeper to beat, she shot wide.
“Sometimes in a tight game like this when you get a chance you got to punish. I mean we got a chance to score a second goal, and we missed that chance – immediately after that they had chance, and they were able to convert that. I think overall the game was tight, but we were poor by our standards because we did not dominate the ball, our midfield was a bit open, we could not put our foot on the ball and control proceedings with the ball,” added Sapula.
Despite three consecutive victories in the round robin stage, where they finished top of the Group with 11 goals without conceding, the Brazilians have been showing signs of jitters in their play and were far from convincing, but the coach sees it differently.
“I would not agree with that because I think in the last games we created a lot of chances. If we check the stats of how many chances we created in the last three games the analysis will tell you that we created on average 8 to 10 chances to score per game so I don’t agree fully with what you’re saying, but I had expected that we can get to the next gear maybe, we can maybe peak come semifinal and final,” said Sapula.
“Yes, I can agree that we were not in our full capacity, but to say we were not really playing football that can help us to win this type of tournament I don’t agree with that. But today we didn’t maybe move a gear up, semifinal match – I think we needed to step up a bit. We were supposed to frustrate them with the ball as we did in the group stages, but it was not to be, we did not manage to do that well today and, again, I don’t think we played our best football today.”
The Brazilians will now turn their attention to the domestic league. They resume their campaign by hosting City Lads Ladies at the Lucas Moripe Stadium in Atteridgeville on Saturday, 6 September.
In the 2025 CAF Women’s Champions League COSAFA qualifiers, Zesco will face Gaborone United Ladies in the final on Sunday, 31 August with a CAF Women’s Champions League spot up for grabs.
Both sides have never played in the continental finals – the Botswana outfit lost on penalties to South Africa’s University of the Western Cape (UWC) in last year’s final.
By Matlhomola Morake
