‘Banyana still have work to do’

It was a clean sweep for Banyana Banyana in the Group stages of the Cosafa Cup in Port Elizabeth, but midfielder Mamello Makhabane reckons the team still needs to work on of their mistakes ahead of their semifinal match against Zimbabwe at the Wolfson Stadium tomorrow.

Banyana topped Group A with some impressive performance, which saw them thrash Comoros Islands 17-0 in their opening fixture of the competition, followed by a 3-1 victory against Malawi and a 3-0 win over Madagascar in the last group stages game.

Makhabane says their semifinal game against Zimbabwe will be tough for them, but they need to go out there and do their best so that they can reach the final.

“There is always a room for improvement, you can never be satisfied with a performance. But winning all the game group games says something about us and it’s a good motivation to us since we didn’t we didn’t do well at the World Cup and the other games we played. But I still feel like we have a lot of work to do, which is fine because we need to make mistake to know where we have to work on,” said the Banyana midfielder, who celebrated her 100th cap for the senior national women’s team against Madagascar.

“We are really going to be tested. I was watching Zimbabwe play and they are not really an easy side to play against. The game will need our full focus, concentration and determination. We must really show that we competed at the World Cup – just go there and do our best because we won’t find another chance. It’s the semifinals, we have to win so that we can go to the final. But Zimbabwe are not an easy side, they play similar football to us and they will be looking to prove a point.”

Being the host nation and defending champions of the tournament, the midfielder adds the team is under a lot of pressure from fans to win the trophy.

“There is a lot of pressure on us because people are expecting us to win the Cosafa because they it’s an easy tournament.”