COSAFA Cup

This article describes the men's COSAFA Cup. For the women 's competition see COSAFA Women's Championship .

COSAFA Cup
Full name	COSAFA Cup
Association	COSAFA
founding	1997
First edition	1997
Teams	12
Game mode	Round-robin tournament  (2 groups of 4 teams each) knockout system (from the quarter finals) with seeded direct entrants
Title holder	Zambia (5th title)
Record winner	Zimbabwe (6 tracks)
Website	cosafa.com
Qualifying competition	Membership in the regional association or invitation

The COSAFA Cup (until 2007 and since 2015 COSAFA Castle Cup , between 2009 and 2012 COSAFA Senior Challenge ; German  soccer championship of southern Africa ) is an annual soccer tournament organized by the soccer association of southern Africa, COSAFA . For years the competition was named after the South African beer Castle as the main sponsor.

The competition was introduced in 1997 after the Africa Cup of Nations in South Africa in 1997, in order to enable the teams from southern Africa, which were mostly inferior in the Africa Cup and World Cup qualifications, to have the opportunity to compare sports under competitive conditions. However, only those members of COSAFA who actively promote youth and women's football are eligible to participate; In addition, teams from African countries that do not belong to COSAFA were invited to participate.

First participations

Below are all national teams that have taken part in this tournament so far.

• Teams in bold became African champions when they first participated.
• Teams in italics were hosts when they first participated.
• Teams in brackets participated for the first time under a different name.

year	First time participant
1997	Malawi	Mozambique	Namibia	Zambia
	Tanzania
1998	Angola	Zimbabwe
1999	Lesotho	South Africa	Swaziland
2000	no first-time participants
2001	Mauritius
2002	Madagascar
2003	Botswana
2004 to 2007	no first-time participants
2008	Comoros
2009	no first-time participants
2013	Kenya	Seychelles
2015	no first-time participants
2016	DR Congo
Since 2017	no first-time participants

The tournaments at a glance

year	host	final			Game for third place
		winner	Result	2nd place	3rd place	Result	4th Place
1997 details	not a host	Zambia	League system	Namibia	Mozambique	League system	Tanzania
1998 details	not a host	Zambia	League system	Zimbabwe	Angola	League system	Namibia
1999 details	not a host	Angola	1: 0/1: 1	Namibia		not carried out
2000 details	not a host	Zimbabwe	3: 0/3: 0	Lesotho		not carried out
2001 details	not a host	Angola	0: 0/1: 0	Zimbabwe		not carried out
2002 details	not a host	South Africa	3: 1/1: 0	Malawi		not carried out
2003 details	not a host	Zimbabwe	2: 1/2: 0	Malawi		not carried out
2004 details	not a host	Angola	0: 0 5: 4 i. E.	Zambia		not carried out
2005 details	South Africa	Zimbabwe	1-0	Zambia		not carried out
2006 details	not a host	Zambia	2-0	Angola		not carried out
2007 details	South Africa	South Africa	0: 0 4: 3 i. E.	Zambia		not carried out
2008 details	South Africa	South Africa	2: 1	Mozambique	Zambia	2-0	Madagascar
2009 details	Zimbabwe	Zimbabwe	3: 1	Zambia	Mozambique	1-0	South Africa
2010 details	Angola	Tournament canceled
2011	not carried out
2012	not carried out
2013 details	Zambia	Zambia	2-0	Zimbabwe	South Africa	2: 1	Lesotho
2014 details	Botswana	Tournament canceled
2015 details	South Africa	Namibia	2-0	Mozambique	Madagascar	2: 1	Botswana
2016 details	Namibia	South Africa	3: 2	Botswana	Swaziland	1-0	DR Congo
2017 details	South Africa	Zimbabwe	3: 1	Zambia	Tanzania	4: 2 n.e.	Lesotho
2018 details	South Africa 1	Zimbabwe	4: 2 a.d.	Zambia	Lesotho	1-0	Madagascar
2019 details	South Africa 2	Zambia	1-0	Botswana	Zimbabwe	6: 5 n.e.	Lesotho

¹ Botswana withdrew from the competition in January 2018.
² Zimbabwe withdrew from the right to host in February 2019.

Ranking list places 1–3

rank	country	title	Year (s)	2nd places	3rd places
1	Zimbabwe	6th	2000, 2003, 2005, 2009, 2017, 2018	3	1
2	Zambia	5	1997, 1998, 2006, 2013, 2019	6th	1
3	South Africa	4th	2002, 2007, 2008, 2016	0	1
4th	Angola	3	1999, 2001, 2004	1	1
5	Namibia	1	2015	2	0
6th	Mozambique	0		2	2
7th	Lesotho	0		2	(1) 1
	Malawi	0		2	0
	Botswana	0		2	0
10	Madagascar	0		0	1
	Tanzania	0		0	1 1

¹ Tanzania is not a member of COSAFA and has entered with guest performance rights; the game for third place was won by Tanzania against Lesotho in 2017.

Participation

While only nine teams (including a non-COSAFA selection) took part in the competition in 1997, there have now been 14 participants since 2008, when the Comoros joined COSAFA.

country	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010 4	2013	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019
Angola	-	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	-	x	x	x	- 1
Equatorial Guinea *	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	-	-	-	-	-
Botswana	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x
Kenya *	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	x	-	-	-	-	-
Comoros	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	x	x	x	-	-	-	-	x	x
DR Congo *	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	x	-	-	-
Lesotho	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x
Madagascar	-	-	-	-	-	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	2	x	x	x	x	x	x	-
Malawi	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x
Mauritius	-	-	-	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x
Mozambique	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x
Namibia	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x
Zambia	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x
Seychelles	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x
Zimbabwe	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x
South Africa	-	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x
Swaziland	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x
Tanzania *	x	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	3	-	3	x	-	x	-	-
Uganda *	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	x

^* Tanzania, Equatorial Guinea, DR Congo, Uganda and Kenya are not members of COSAFA, but have received guest performance rights.
¹ Has canceled his participation at short notice.
² Madagascar canceled its participation at short notice.
³ Tanzania has received guest performance rights, but has not started.
⁴ tournament was not played.

Web links

• Official website of the COSAFA
• COSAFA Cup on RSSSF

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Botswana will not be hosting the 2018 COSAFA Cup. African Football, January 23, 2018.