The 2024 COSAFA Cup was the 23rd edition of the annual association football competition organized by COSAFA. It was held in South Africa for the seventh straight year, this time in Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth), from 26 June to 7 July 2024.[1]Zambia were the defending champions, but were eliminated in the group stage.
Participating nations
Twelve nations featured in the 2024 edition of the tournament. Two COSAFA members, Madagascar and Mauritius, did not participate.[2]Zimbabwe returned to the tournament for the first time since the 2021 edition following its FIFA ban.[3] Despite originally being announced as a participant, Malawi withdrew from the tournament prior to the group draw out of respect for eight victims of a plane crash earlier that week. One of the victims was former Vice-President of MalawiSaulos Chilima.[4]Kenya accepted COSAFA’s invitation to participate as a guest to replace Malawi.[5]
The twelve participating teams were drawn into three groups of four teams. As the defending champions, Zambia and the next two highest ranked teams, Angola and South Africa, were in separate groups as the seeded teams. Group winners and the best runner-up will moved on to the semi-finals.[2]
Dates
Originally scheduled to be held 14 to 23 June 2024, the competition was then postponed.[7] At the time the date change was announced, nations had already begun naming their squads and leagues had altered their season schedules to accommodate the tournament. COSAFA stated that the postponement was necessarily to give the competition maximum exposure, presumably because of a number of high-profile competitions that would have been taking place at the same time.[8][9] On 13 June 2024, COSAFA announced the tournament would be played from 26 June to 7 July 2024.[2]
Draw
The draw for the group stage of the 2024 COSAFA Cup was held on 14 June 2024 in Johannesburg.[2][10]
Teams are ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss), and if tied on points, the following tiebreaking criteria are applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings:
Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
If more than two teams are tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams are still tied, all head-to-head criteria above are reapplied exclusively to this subset of teams;
Goal difference in all group matches;
Goals scored in all group matches;
Penalty shoot-out if only two teams are tied and they met in the last round of the group;
Disciplinary points (yellow card = 1 point, red card as a result of two yellow cards = 3 points, direct red card = 3 points, yellow card followed by direct red card = 4 points);
Drawing of lots.
Group stage matches were played from 26 June to 3 July 2024.[10]
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