Banyana Banyana head coach Desiree Ellis says the team has improved throughout the Cosafa Cup, and she is feeling confident going into today’s semi-final against Malawi.
Banyana beat Malawi 2-1 in their first game in the competition, but Ellis says they will not be complacent going into this game.
The coach says there are areas they are looking to improve on, especially turning chances into goals, but she expects her team to progress if they stick to their plans.
“Look, I think as the tournament has gone on, we’ve gotten a bit better, in terms of what we want to do,” Ellis told SAFA media.
“We started being true to who we are, putting the ball on the ground and moving the ball around.
“There’s still a lot of room for improvement, though, but the one challenge now is that, in the last match against Mozambique, we had 26 goal attempts, and only 13 on target, of which we scored three. We got to improve the ratio of goal attempts, to shots on target, to goals.
“And that’s got to be better. In the game against Malawi in the semi final, there’s gonna be no room for error. There’s no second chances. And we know that it’s not going to be easy game, it’s going to be as difficult as the first game was.
“But if we are true to who we are, and we execute our plans really well, we know that we are a team that are very organised at the back, can concede very little. We will always create opportunities, and if we execute our plan really well, we will come out with a positive result. But we need to minimize our mistakes, we need to stay concentrated for the duration of the game from the time the whistle goes until the whistle ends, because Malawi have showed that they played till the last whistle, and they’ve shown that they do not give up.
“And we need to make sure that we control the game, the way we want to control it, and make sure you know that we’ve stayed true to who we are, but it’s going to be a tough match.
“And if we stay true to who we are and execute our plans 100%, then we will get the positive result that we’re looking for. But we’ve got to be concentrated for the duration of the time.”
