2024 COSAFA U-20 Women's Championship

COSAFA U-20
Women's Championship 2024
Tournament details
Host country	South Africa
Dates	19 – 24 November
Teams	5 (from 1 sub-confederation)
Venue(s)	1 (in 1 host city)
Final positions
Champions	Zambia (1st title)
Runners-up	South Africa
Third place	Mozambique
Tournament statistics
Matches played	10
Goals scored	42 (4.2 per match)
Top scorer(s)	Adrielle Mibe ; Ruth Muwowo ; (4 goals each)
Best player(s)	Saliya Mwanza
Best goalkeeper	Mwila Mufunte
Fair play award	Lesotho
	← 2019 TBD→

Last updated March 13, 2025

The 2024 COSAFA U-20 Women's Championship was the second edition of the COSAFA U-20 Women's Championship, the international women's youth football championship contested by the under-20 women's national teams of the member associations of COSAFA. The tournament was hosted in Johannesburg, South Africa from 19 to 24 November 2024.^[1]

East African guest nation Tanzania were the inaugural Champions when they lifted a maiden title in 2019 with a 2–1 victory over Zambia in the final.^[2]^[3] As the Twiga Stars did not return for this edition the tournament saw a COSAFA member claim the title for the first time, with Zambia clinching the championship undefeated and without conceding a goal, while host South Africa finished second.^[4]^[5]

Format

Unlike the previous edition, which featured a group stage followed by semifinals and a final, This year's competition followed a round-robin format due to the lower number of participants. Each of the five teams faced the others once, earning three points for a win, one for a draw, and zero for a loss. The team with the most points was crowned the 2024 champions.^[6]

Participation

Participating teams

Initially, only 4 out of 14 COSAFA members entered the second edition. However, Zambia was added to the lineup on 11 November 2024, bringing the total to 5 teams.^[7] Lesotho made their debut in the competition after missing the inaugural edition in 2019.^[8]

Team	App	Last	Previous best performance
Botswana	2nd	2019	Group stage (2019)
Lesotho	1st	—	Debut
Mozambique	2nd	2019	Group stage (2019)
South Africa	2nd	2019	Third place (2019)
Zambia	2nd	2019	Runners-up (2019)

Did not enter

Angola
Comoros
Eswatini
Madagascar
Malawi
Mauritius
Namibia
Seychelles
Zimbabwe

Draw

The tournament draw took place at COSAFA House in Johannesburg, South Africa, on 13 October 2024 at 17:00 SAST (UTC+2).^[9]

the pre-determined fixtures:

MD	Date	Matches
1	19 November 2024	A2 v A3, A1 v A4
2	20 November 2024	A5 v A4, A1 v A3
3	22 November 2024	A5 v A3, A1 v A2
4	23 November 2024	A3 v A4, A2 v A4
5	24 November 2024	A4 v A2, A1 v A5

The draw resulted in the following positions:

Pos	Team
A1	South Africa
A2	Lesotho
A3	Zambia
A4	Mozambique
A5	Botswana

Squads

Each of the five participating national teams was required to register a squad of up to 20 players. with Players born between 1 January 2004 and 31 December 2008 were eligible to compete in the tournament.

Venue

All the matches will be held on the University of Johannesburg's Soweto campus in Johannesburg.

Johannesburg	Johannesburg
UJ Stadium
Capacity: 8,000

Main tournament

All times are local, SAST (UTC+2). The match schedule was confirmed by COSAFA on 13 November 2024.

Tie-breaking criteria for separating teams on the table
Separating teams on the table was determined as follows: Points obtained in all group matches; Points obtained in the matches played between the teams in question; Goal difference in all group matches; Number of goals scored in all group matches; Fair play points in all tournament matches: Yellow card: −1 points; Direct red card: −2 points; Drawing of lots.

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Final result
1	Zambia	4	4	0	0	19	0	+19	12	Champions
2	South Africa (H)	4	3	0	1	10	3	+7	9	Runners-up
3	Mozambique	4	1	1	2	6	10	−4	4	Third place
4	Lesotho	4	0	2	2	4	16	−12	2
5	Botswana	4	0	1	3	3	13	−10	1

Source: COSAFA
Rules for classification: Tiebreakers
(H) Hosts

19 November 2024