Banyana Banyana head coach Dr Desiree Ellis says the African champions need to be better in anticipation and defence as they intensify preparations for the defence of their WAFCON title in less than two months.
Banyana survived a scare from Botswana in an international friendly at the Lucas Moripe stadium winning 3-2 having taken a 3-0 lead inside the first 40 minutes of the game.
However they allowed the Mares to come back and score two goals in the Tri-Nations series that also involves Zambia who play South Africa next Tuesday.
Ellis reflected on the game saying they knew how the opponents were going to come at them and should have had a better reaction.
“I think the first goal we knew that they were going to play the ball long and we didn’t react to that,” said Ellis on SABC TV.
“The second goal that we gave away we said be patient on the ball don’t force it but we played into the traffic where we could have played wide. Some little lapse of concentration.
“Also the tempo went down a bit, in the first half the tempo was very high and we moved the ball around and the second half we didn’t move around and move the ball around to move them around and that played more or less in their favour.
“But I think if I look back it’s two goals that we gave away. We need to be better at that because we were in complete control until they got back into the game and then we try to lift up the tempo later on, it wasn’t there to lift up and the few half chances that we got we need to do better there as well but.”
