Ellis far from happy
BANYANA Banyana coach Desiree Ellis was not pleased with her team’s performance in their slender 1-0 victory away to Lesotho in the 2019 Africa Women’s Cup of Nations first leg qualifier on Wednesday.
The return leg will be on Sunday at the Dr Petrus Molemela Stadium in Bloemfontein at 3pm. According to Ellis, their early lead that came via Leandra Smeda did more damage than good in terms of their performance.
“We didn’t play well,” Ellis said. “We could have done way better than we did. We were very sloppy, not just in our performance, but in our passing and decision making. We scored early, then we became a little bit complacent.” And the wheels came off. “We tried to remind them that the game is not yet over, and we need to stay focused. We also reminded that we are in control of the game, but it could turn into a battle (if they lose focus). And eventually, it turned into a battle and that’s not what we wanted.
“We also had a few more chances where we could have finished the game off but we did not, however, we’ll continue working on that. We could have finished off the tie, but we’re disappointed that we didn’t,” she said.
Ellis’ squad is largely made up of new players from the national team junior ranks.
This follows the exclusion of United States based trio Janine van Wyk, Thembi Kgatlana and Linda Motlhalo who are on club duty with Houston Dash. The last time the 55-yearold placed her faith in only local-based players was at the 2017 Cosafa Cup where she became the only South African to win the competition as a player and coach.
Ellis is confident her charges can do the job at home.
“The team that we put on the park was good enough to get the results for us (on Wednesday),” Ellis said. “But unfortunately, things didn’t work out the way we wanted them to. We’ve brought some young players with us so as to blood them into the senior team.
“We want to have a progression from the players that come through, and some of them have raised their hands. The senior players also need to stand up. It’s just a pity that we are experiencing the same problem as Bafana Bafana who also does not take their chances.”