Skipper Janine pays tribute to Banyana fans for their support

Banyana Banyana skipper Janine van Wyk was overwhelmed by the turn-out of fans during their international friendly against Burkina Faso at the Dobsonville Stadium on Sunday.

Van Wyk and her team-mates put on a show for their supporters, beating the West African country 4-0 courtesy of a Thembi Kgatlana (right) brace, a Leandra Smeda header and an own goal by Burkinabe defender Charlotte Millogo.

“It feels great, especially in front of our home crowd. It is always nice seeing so many fans supporting Banyana Banyana. I heard someone say this was the biggest crowd we have attracted in Dobsonville. So that is amazing and you can see people get behind a winning team. Especially after winning the Cosafa Cup, people want to see what we are about and today we put up a good performance and banged in the goals just as they expected. Hopefully, when we come back we will get more support,” said Van Wyk.

“I am happy with the performance of the team, although we struggled a bit in the first couple of minutes. But I think it was the case of finding our feet and playing well with each other. But after the first and second goal, we started to dominate. That’s good going forward for us, we just have to keep the momentum going.”

Burkina Faso are a low-ranked side who have never featured in a Women’s Africa Cup of Nations. But the Banyana skipper believes the match was all about getting to understand each other more and executing the coach’s instructions.

“I wouldn’t say this was a Nigeria or Ghana we played, they didn’t really put us on the back foot. They didn’t give us any danger in defence. But it was the kind of friendly which helps us build on working together as a team and working on what we have been doing in training,” she added.

“I think everyone did extremely well. We did what we were asked to do, which was to get the ball in the back of the net and get a good result.”

Banyana are set to play two more friendly matches by the end of the year, before starting next year with a couple of friendlies against Sweden in Cape Town in January.