Zambia lost 1-0 to Brazil on Tuesday to crash out of the knockout phase qualification race for women’s football at the Olympic Games.
The Copper Queens started the game on a bad note. They lost Lushomo Mweemba to a red card after VAR review of play in the 15th minute of the Group F match at the iconic Saitama Stadium.
Eventually, the referee awarded Brazil a free-kick in the 19th minute. Andressa Alves stepped forward to score with a powerful free-kick that flew past Zambia goalkeeper Hazel Nali Hazel to the top right corner.
That turned out to be Nali’s last notable involvement in the game.
Five minutes later, Nali suffered an injury, forcing Zambia coach Bruce Mwape to replace her with Musole.
Brazil kept searching for more goals whereas Zambia played more for damage limitation looking at their numerical disadvantage.
Zambia finished the group at the bottom with one point from three games after having lost 10-3 to Netherlands and held China 4-4.
In both previous games, striker Barbara Banda had showed her class by scoring a hat-trick to enter the race as among the leading scorers of the competition with six goals.
Now Netherlands lead the group’s standings with seven points from three games after thumping China 8-2 in another match played also on Tuesday. China are also out of the race.
Zambia are the only representative for Africa in the women’s tournament at the Games and before Tuesday’s match, they had impressed especially when going forward.
In yesterday’s game, Mwape made two changes to the starting line-up that started against China, with Margaret Belemu and Martha Tembo getting the nod ahead of Esther Siamfuko and Mary Wilombe.
Line-ups:
Brazil: Bárbara; Jucinara, Rafaelle, Poliana, Letícia Santos, Marta, Angelina, Formiga, Andressa Alves, Beatriz, Ludmila
Zambia : Hazel Nali, Agness Musase, Lushomo Mweemba, Martha Tembo, Margaret Belemu, Ochumba Oseke, Grace Chanda, Barbara Banda, Avell Chitundu, Ireen Lungu, Rachel Kundananji
Referee: Yoshimi Yamashita
Assistant Referee: Naomi Teshirogi
Assistant Referee: Makoto Bozono
Fourth official: Stéphanie Frappart