Malawi's Fairytale Meets Cameroon's Fourth Chance: WAFCON 2026 Final Preview
Tonight, the Olympic Stadium in Rabat hosts a final nobody would have predicted when the group stage kicked off three weeks ago. At 8:00pm local time (WAT), Cameroon and Malawi walk out for the 2026 WAFCON final, and by the final whistle, one country will be celebrating its first-ever Women's Africa Cup of Nations title.
For Nigerian football fans, tonight carries an extra layer of interest even with the Super Falcons long out of the tournament. One of these two finalists, Malawi, is the same side that knocked Nigeria off balance in the group stage last month, in a result that immediately raised questions about how seriously the rest of the continent was taking this Malawi squad. Nigeria isn't playing tonight, but the shadow of that result is.
It is also, on its own terms, the biggest night in African women's football this year — two federations who have never won this trophy, on the continent's biggest stage for the women's game, with nothing between them but 90 minutes and, if needed, penalties.
Debutants against a four-time finalist
Malawi are tournament debutants making their first-ever WAFCON final appearance, while Cameroon are walking out for a final for the fourth time, Al Jazeera reported. That contrast alone tells you everything about the two very different paths that brought both teams to Rabat.
What it also guarantees is a first-time champion. Whoever wins Sunday's final claims a maiden WAFCON title for their country. There is no defending champion on the pitch tonight — only two nations chasing something neither has ever held before.
For Cameroon, it is a fourth attempt at a trophy that has eluded them each time before. For Malawi, it is simply the furthest they have ever gone in the competition's history, achieved on their first try in the tournament proper.
Reaching a first final as a debutant nation is rare enough in continental football. Doing it while eliminating a former Super Falcons squad along the way, and then beating Algeria in the semi-final, turns Malawi's run into one of the more remarkable stories WAFCON has produced.
The Chawinga sisters' fingerprints are everywhere
Follow the goals through this Malawi run and one surname keeps appearing. Tabitha Chawinga scored twice in the semi-final win over Algeria, and she was also on the scoresheet, alongside her sister Temwa, in the group-stage win over Nigeria back on July 28.
Two sisters, scoring at both ends of the tournament, in wins over a former continental heavyweight and a WAFCON regular — it's the kind of thread that turns a surprise run into a genuine story.
How each side survived the semi-finals
Neither finalist arrived in Rabat quietly. Malawi's 3-1 semi-final win over Algeria was built on that Chawinga double, closing out a result that put them into a final at the first attempt.
Cameroon's route was tighter and far more nerve-shredding. They needed penalties to get past hosts Morocco, winning 3-1 from the spot after 120 goalless minutes that left a home crowd desperate for a different outcome. Both results now sit in the tournament's history books as statement wins — one built on individual quality, the other on knockout-football composure.
Cameroon's win carries extra weight for one specific reason: Morocco were the hosts. Beating the host nation on their own turf, in a semi-final, on penalties, after 120 goalless minutes, is about as difficult a route to a final as the tournament could have handed them.
The result Nigeria still can't explain
Malawi's run to the final was built on shocks, and the first one is still being talked about in Nigerian football circles. On July 28, Malawi stunned 10-time champions Nigeria 3-2 in the group stage, with sisters Temwa and Tabitha Chawinga both scoring, according to Just Women's Sports.
It wasn't just an upset by reputation — it was unprecedented. Nigeria had never previously lost to a WAFCON debutant since the competition began in 1998. Rasheedat Ajibade converted a penalty and Uchenna Kanu also scored for the Super Falcons that afternoon, but the comeback stalled at 3-2 and Nigeria never found an equaliser.
Nigeria had never previously lost to a WAFCON debutant since the competition began in 1998 — until Malawi did it on July 28.
That single group-stage result now looks less like a shock and more like an early warning that nobody outside Malawi's camp took seriously enough.
It also reframes how Nigerian fans should watch tonight's final. The team that is 90 minutes from a maiden continental title is the same one whose goal-scoring pair of sisters already proved, in July, that they could take a game away from one of the sport's most decorated national sides.
What a maiden title would mean
Cameroon have now reached four WAFCON finals without winning one. A victory on Sunday would finally end that wait, giving them a first continental crown at the fourth attempt.
A Malawi win would be a different kind of statement altogether. It would mean the team that eliminated Nigeria in the group stage — ending the Super Falcons' unbeaten run against WAFCON debutants — finishes the tournament as African champions, having reached their first-ever final and won it at the first try. Either way, a name gets added to the WAFCON winners' list that has never been on it before.
There's a symmetry worth sitting with: Cameroon have spent years building toward a moment like this one, across four finals. Malawi built toward it in a matter of weeks, inside a single tournament. Both routes end at the same final, with the same prize on the line.
How to watch
Kickoff is 8:00pm local time at the Olympic Stadium in Rabat. The final will be broadcast on SuperSport, Canal+, CAF TV and select free-to-air networks, per BellaNaija.
For neutrals without a rooting interest, it's a fairly simple pick: a proven quantity in Cameroon against a Malawi side that has already beaten Nigeria and Algeria on its way to this final. It is a final both finalists will want the whole continent watching. Whichever team lifts the trophy, tonight's result becomes the answer to a question African women's football has been asking all tournament: which of these two sides was really built for this moment, and which one simply arrived at the right time?
Three weeks ago, Malawi were the team nobody outside their own camp had fully scouted. Tonight, in Rabat, they are 90 minutes away from becoming African champions — and Nigeria, still working out how a debutant beat the Super Falcons for the first time in the competition's history, will be watching every minute of it.
