Banyana looking to restore lost pride after Brazil bashing
SOUTH Africa’s national women’s team Banyana Banyana wrapped up their preparations at the Kingsmeadow Stadium yesterday ahead of their international friendly against Australia today.
The Kingsmeadow Stadium, home of Chelsea Women, will be the venue for the match where South Africa will look to regain lost pride after the team took a pasting on home soil at the hands of ninth world-ranked Brazil in two friendlies last month.
Over two matches, South Africa leaked nine goals and failed to score each time.
Australia are 12th on the world rankings and pose an equally formidable threat.
Although they are 15 000km away from home, they are equally comfortable in England because more than half the team ply their trade in the United Kingdom.
The SA team has not given themselves a fair chance to show improvement since they only arrived in England on Wednesday. Their opponents have been in camp there since the weekend.
Banyana coach Desiree Ellis has called on her charges to play brave football and use the outing to prepare for the FIFA World Cup in Australia and New Zealand next year from July to August.
“What we are going to try and do is work on our defensive side but also rotate the ball a bit quicker,” Ellis told SAFA media.
“I think if we can rotate the ball a bit quicker, we’ll do better. Our movement is always good, and we are always
going to create. If we succeed there we are going to be in a better position.
“We need to show what we are capable of, and we have to push our levels up as well.
“I think the intensity sometimes in some of the matches in the league doesn’t help either. A lot of players go back and do extra work in December and January.
“When we return, we have to work on our conditioning and intensity to get players to a certain level before the World Cup.
“There are lots of things that we worked on in a very short space of time.
“Unfortunately we couldn’t work on everything but defensively we have to be a little bit more organised.
“We must make sure that we cover each other, and we minimise our mistakes. When we are on the ball we need to do better. Our decision-making needs to be better.”
SA fans back home will be keen to see how newcomer Faith Nokuthula shapes up.
“There is something that many people don’t know about Faith,” said Ellis to SAFA media.
“She plays as a right-fullback or right-wing back at Blackburn.
“But Nokuthula played in the youth team at Brighton as a central midfielder.
“However, we played her (at training) in the position of the right-full back, and she looked very calm on the ball.
“Her passing was good, and she was impressive in just one session. But she showed her qualities and looking forward to seeing her tomorrow as well.”
Nokuthula was born in Ireland to South African parents and has opted to represent South Africa.
The two sides have never met before, and the match will be historic, since Australia’s national women’s team has never played against African opposition before.
Only Banyana Banyana’s Italian-based midfielder Refiloe Jane knows the Matildas, as the Aussies are known.
Two years ago, she spent a season playing for Canberra United in Australia’s premier women’s league.
The Australians appear to have made better use of their time in camp and will play twice in the space of four days. After playing South Africa (worldranked 54) at London’s Kingsmeadow Stadium on Saturday, they will clash with Denmark (17) in Viborg, four days later.
Ellis said Safa was unable to secure a second friendly while the team was in London.