Africa Champions Cup for Women - Team Profile: Ferroviario de Maputo

 

MAPUTO (Mozambique) - It remains to be seen if the two-year hiatus of the FIBA Africa Champions Cup for Women has affected or not Ferroviario de Maputo's momentum in African basketball landscape.

As the annual tournament prepares to return next week in Maputo for the first time since 2019, the inevitable question is whether or not Ferroviario de Maputo remains the powerful team that dominated Africa from 2018 to 2019.

Over the course of the last two editions of the tournament, Ferroviario de Maputo took the trophy home twice, making them the No.1 team in the build-up to this year's edition of the competition.

To put things into context, not even Inter Clube de Luanda - the most successful basketball club in Africa in the last decade with five African titles - were able to prevent Ferrovario from becoming the current queens of FIBA Africa Women's club flagship event.

We need to go back to November 20, 2018 to find Ferrovario's last defeat in the recent history of the tournament. And, guess who beat Ferroviario? You got it! Inter Club de Luanda inflicted the Maputo-based club a 77-70 defeat in the Group Phase in Maputo.

However, when the two sides met up in the Final, Ferroviario de Maputo prevailed 59-56 to win their first-ever FIBA Africa Champions Cup for Women on November 25, 2018.

All in all, Ferroviario, who finished second in 2017, head to the 2022 edition of the tournament on the back of a 12-1 record.

Ferroviario de Maputo are fully aware of the challenge they will face next week, and, in order to defend their continental crown, they need to do a lot better than they did in the Mozambican League Final last week, where they lost to Costa do Sol 2-0 in the best-of-three Finals series.

Of the ten teams expected in Maputo, Ferroviario have faced and beaten four teams at least once. Those teams are - CNSS (DR Congo), Energie BBC (Benin), Sporting Alexandria (Egypt), and Inter Clube de Luanda (Angola). 

Mozambican Nasir Sale is the man at the helm of Ferroviario de Maputo. Amongst his biggest successes was the 2012 title of the FIBA Africa Champions Cup for Women at the helm of the now defunct Liga Desportiva. It occurred in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire.

Sale has coached his country at four Women's AfroBasket in 2013, 2015, 2017 and 2021, having led Mozambique to a Second-Place in 2013, an event that qualified the Southern African country to the 2014 FIBA Women's Basketball World Cup in Turkey.

Odelia Mafanela and three-point specialist Anabela Cossa have become part of the team's bedrock, and expected to contribute key roles next week.

Even if Ferroviario aren't the same team from two years ago, playing at home can always bring extra motivation.

FIBA