Zambia will kick off their Women’s World Cup campaign with a tough battle against Japan as one of the tournament’s biggest underdogs look to move to the top of the table after the first match between Spain and Costa Rica.
Japan are one of the four winners from the Women’s World Cup after a triumph in 2011. They made it to the 2015 Women’s World Cup final too, losing to the United States four years on from beating them in the 2011 final.
A day to go to our first game MATCHDAY -1 ! DEBUT FIFA WORLD CUP LOADING! #FIFAWWC #WeAreCopperQueens #ZAM pic.twitter.com/E7RpPY82fF— Zambia WNT (@Copper_Queens) July 21, 2023
A day to go to our first game MATCHDAY -1 ! DEBUT FIFA WORLD CUP LOADING! #FIFAWWC #WeAreCopperQueens #ZAM pic.twitter.com/E7RpPY82fF
Japan would be in the quarter-finals of the 2019 final and get knocked out by the Netherlands.
There are a bunch of players that play in the Women's Super League for Japan these days. Fuka Nagano and Yui Hasegawa both played out excellent seasons for Liverpool and Manchester City, respectively, while Mina Tanaka of INAC Kobe Leonessa heads into this one as the top active scorer in the Japan squad.
Sadly for the nation, they are without Mana Iwabuchi for this tournament and her 37 goals in 89 games will be a great miss.
As for Zambia's squad, all attention turns to Barbra Banda, who heads into this game with the best goals to game ratio from all players at the tournament with 22 goals in 10 games.
The Shanghai Shengli start will be a massive threat towards the Japanese defence. Racheal Kundananji and Grace Chanda of Madrid CFF both bring in a decent goals record too, alongside Zaragoza CFF's Rachael Nachula.
Zambia have also played more games than most nations in 2023 after the Turkish Women's Cup GS. They kicked things off with a 1-0 win over North Macedonia before losing 1-0 to Slovenia and registering a 4-0 win over Uzbekistan shortly afterwards.
Zambia then conceded five goals on two occasions within four days of one another to South Korea after a 5-2 loss and a 5-0 defeat in early April.
Further wins in 2023 came against Tanzania and a recent 3-2 win over Germany in a warm up game. Zambia also drew 2-2 with Switzerland and lost to the Republic of Ireland.
As for Japan, they have lost to Denmark, USA and Brazil this year, all by 1-0 scorelines. They've also managed to defeat Canada 3-0, beat Portugal 2-1 and also defeat Panama 5-0 in a recent MS & AD Cup battle two weeks ago.
Forebet predicts a win for Japan and for the game to see under 2.5 goals.