The Copper Queens!
I hope everyone had a restful weekend! While the time difference has made the schedule less than ideal, we’ve been enjoying the Women’s World Cup in our household all week long. In particular, we have been rooting for The Copper Queens – Zambia’s women’s team, who was the first landlocked African country to make it to the World Cup (men’s or women’s). They qualified by reaching the semi-finals of the 2022 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations.
Captained by Barbra Banda, the superstar who scored two hat tricks back-to-back in the 2020 Olympics, the “Copper Queens” arrived in style to their first World Cup match. And to be honest of course, Zambia lost both of their matches so far 5-0 (first to Japan, then to Spain – both fairly good teams!). But they came into the tournament having just beaten Germany in a friendly, with genuine grit, drive, and talent as an extremely underrated team. They are beloved (maybe even more than the men’s team!) in Zambia, and it has been truly exciting to watch them compete over the last few years. Both Barbra Banda and Racheal Kundananji are two impressive players that deserve to play on the global stage. And while it was a disappointing two games, I’m excited to see this team compete again. Their journey to the Women's World Cup serves as a testament to the power of collective effort and the potential in the air as each game starts, with that first kickoff.
Sports is such an interesting thing to watch when you have kids. I’ve written previously about rediscovering basketball this year with my own, and it was largely a joy that came from watching a winning team win. So much of playing sports with kids is just getting them to enjoy the game, encouraging them to try their hardest, and (at least for mine!) learning to be okay with losing. What’s so interesting when you watch something like the World Cup with them, is just the honest truth that while we love watching our team win, most teams lose. You can hope to beat the odds, and sometimes you have a uniquely high-performing team that is going to win no matter what. But in many cases, when you’ve reached the level of the World Cup, truly either team can win. And what is humbling is that even the best teams, with the best players, lose sometimes.
As for our Copper Queens – I think the best is yet to come. They are certainly inspiring the next generation of players in Zambia. Somewhere in a small village, maybe one not that different from Joel, a little girl is waking up this morning, and kicking around a soccer ball because she saw them play on the world stage. And – win or lose – that is monumental on its own.
Onwards!
-Reshma