It’s a big day for both Banyana Banyana teams with the youthful side out to seal progression beyond the group stage at the 2024 COSAFA Women’s championship while the seniors seek a rare win over Denmark in Aalborg.
The juniors defeated Namibia 1-0 in the opening group match and next face Eswatini in a top-of-the-table clash at Wolfson Stadium at 15:00.
Eswatini has a better goal difference and thus lead Banyana in Group A, but only the group winner will advance to the semi-finals.
A win for Banyana will give them a better chance to do that and it will be redemption from the 2023 edition with Coach Maud Khumalo backing her side in the tie saying they have better structure compared to their opponents and the hosts are better as a collective which can help them get the margin victory they need.
“We plan to pick up where we left off with Namibia whereby we need to score goals,” Khumalo told Safa.net.
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“It’s more of emphasising on scoring goals and then making sure that we collect maximum points so that we don’t put ourselves under pressure with regards to the group stages. It’s more of us scoring more goals and we are also not going to undermine Eswatini.
Elsewhere, in Europe, coach Desiree Ellis says having not played in months, the rustiness showed from players in training earlier in the week ahead of the Denmark clash. The last time the senior team played was against Senegal earlier in the year, with Ellis saying the tour which also includes a match against England next week, is about performance as the team gears up to defend their African title next year.
“I think the players are really committed to doing well on this tour,” said Ellis.
“We all know what we are preparing for. It’s the WAFCON and I think everybody needs to raise their hands. Look, we’ve always been a team that has been defensively sound, and we want to go back to being that team that is well organised.
“We know we are going to create opportunities and obviously we need to start putting more shots on targets because you have a better chance to score but it’s all about performance.
“I think the performance will bring a good result because sometimes you can play badly and still win but we have to look at improved performances all the time because we are preparing for something bigger.
“The big thing we look for performance, all round performance in how we set ourselves up and according to the game plan and then everything works itself up from there,” she further said.
The match at home kicks off at 15:00 followed by the one in Denmark at 18:00.
