Ahead of the quarter-final clash against Senegal at the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (WAFCON) tournament, Banyana Banyana coach Dr Desiree Ellis says her side need to be at their best to get past the Lionesses.
The defending champions finished first in Group C with seven points, while Senegal were third best finishers from Group A with three points.
Ellis says the group stage campaign has shown how much a lot of teams, including Senegal have improved. The three time CAF Women’s Coach of the Year saw how tough Senegal made things for teams in their group and is also aware that there will be no second chances in the knockout round, revealing she was pleased that her charges made a statement in their final group game.
“Senegal have shown in a very difficult group that they can tough it out with the best,” Ellis said.
“So we have to be at our absolute best to get a result, because the game is not going to be easy once again. I don’t think any game has been easy at WAFCON.
“It’s good that it’s not a one-sided tournament where you can predict an outcome because you can’t really predict an outcome.
“The games are so, so tight and one moment of magic or one moment of madness or mistake by someone and that’s a goal. So, we got to be really on top of our game against Senegal.
“They’ve shown against Zambia, very tight game against Morocco. So we got to be at our best, but against Mali we made a statement. I mean, show what we can do that we’ve got to be even better in almost departments.”
Meanwhile, the coach explained that Banyana’s rampant performance against Mali, following an unconvincing 1-1 draw with Tanzania, wasn’t something that happened overnight but a culmination of consistent hard work not only in the final third but all the departments.
“You work on things and as I said, it doesn’t happen overnight where everything comes together,” added Ellis.
“It doesn’t happen overnight where all of a sudden, you’ve worked for weeks on finishing, or you’ve worked for weeks on your build-up and doesn’t mean all of a sudden it comes right, but there’s a moment that it comes together.
“There’s a moment that you create many opportunities and if you look at the ratio, I don’t know what the ratio it is, but the chances we created and the shots on goal, it gives you an opportunity then to score goals.
“The more shots you get on target, the more opportunities you get to score and our goals were [vs Mali] really well taken. I thought maybe we could have had more. But we keep working, not just on our finishing, but we keep working on everything, because there’s no perfect game.”
Meanwhile, Nigeria and Morocco have already booked their semi-final tickets on Friday, with the Super Falcons set to face the winner between Banyana and Senegal.
