A tiny black and white television is connected to a car battery in the team Captain’s room to watch the World Cup. At this stage of the game, teammates of Annafields Phiri still consider Brazil or Argentina, as the favorites to win.

But, outside the Zimbabwe capital, they are not the ordinary team. All are women, who are suffering from HIV/AIDS virus and for them football is more than a game, as it is their life saver.

The Positive Ladies Football Club is home to a side known as the antiretroviral Swallows, and many in the team would be likely to die out of AIDS, without their enthusiasm for football and their antiretroviral (ARV) medication.

In this southern African homeland, where about quarter of the adult people are estimated to be infected with the virus that leads to AIDS, the disease was long shunned in local public. Infected women were expelled from the families.

The Swallows are challenging 5-a-side match of HIV positive women in South Africa, which is scheduled on July 2 and is organized on the sidelines of the World Cup by Doctors Without Limitations from its HIV treatment projects in southern Africa.

They will be guided by Coach Jonas Kapakasa, who was the goalkeeper in a Zimbabwe club."Everyone is very excited. We're ready to show what we can do", Kapakasa told The Associated Press.