Zambia win bronze in Africa with golden-goal win over Malawi

Zambia won the bronze medal today at the IKF All-African Korfball Championship in Lusaka (ZAM), after beating Malawi 13-12 by a golden goal. The result can be considered as an upset, as yesterday in the group phase of the tournament, Malawi beat Zambia with great ease (13-3). Today, the team coached by technical director Daniel de Rudder, managed to turn this result around.

Malawi started as well in the match as they had finished yesterday, taking a 5-1 lead. With good combinations and fine shooting, however, Zambia managed to turn this around to 5-7. Malawi made many fouls and defensive mistakes, and Zambia took better advantage of the speed of their women, with especially Jenny Banda playing an important role.

This forced Zambia to do two substitutions, with Getrude Kasimba bringing in more length to the team. Before halftime the difference could not be made though, leading to a 6-8 score at half time, and Zambia missing two penalties just before the break.

Aftetr halftime, a different game emerged, with Malawi taking better advantage of their length, and Kasimba making two important goals from under the post (8-8), but subsequently Malawi also missed two penalties at a crucial phase in the match, but Malawi managed to keep the lead (9-8) until the 45th minute

In the last few minutes of the regular playing time, a true spectacle emerged, with the 9-9 of Zambia by Banda, in the 47th minute a penalty by Malawi (10-9), and subsequently a missed penalty by Malawi, a Malawi goal canceled by the referee for defended shooting, a penalty scored by Zambia, another missed penalty by Malawi, a scored penalty by Malawi and a scored penalty by Zambia, evening the score just a few seconds before the end.

In the golden goal period, it was Zambia the was the lucky winner, leading to tears of happiness on one side and many tears of sadness on the other.

Watch the video of the extra time with golden goal on Facebook (link will follow once uploaded).