After Banyana Banyana were thumped 6-0 by Brazil on Monday night, coach Desiree Ellis and captain Janine van Wyk have admitted that the pressure will be more intense at the Fifa Women’s World Cup in New Zealand and Australia in 2023.
Banyana qualified for the World Cup by virtue of reaching the semi-finals of the WAFCON (Women’s African Cup of Nations) in Morocco over a month ago. The South Africans went on to win the tournament, but after the two-match series against Brazil, it is evident that the gap between CAF (Confederation of African Football) competitions and international Fifa tournaments is massive.
Banyana lost the first leg 3-0 to the South American champions on Friday.
Mistakes and sub-standard play at the back, more especially from goalkeeper Kaylin Swart, exposed Ellis’ side to the physically imposing Brazilians.
“In the beginning, we spoke about minimizing our mistakes and being brave. Mistakes are costing us dearly at this stage, at WAFCON we made three mistakes that resulted in three goals against us,” Ellis explained after the match.
“It is about decision-making when you are under pressure and that is important. The pressure is going to be more when we go to the World Cup, we need to rectify that.”
Ellis explained further: “We looked good on the ball and created half chances, but the result was not great. We are better than that. The World Cup is not tomorrow, it is in a year’s time and we wanted a test like this to see where we are.
“We need to sit down and look at the footage [and decide] who goes with us on our journey, who do we release and who do we bring in. I am not happy with the results, there were few positive outcomes but the negative moments outweigh the positive moments.
“We have enough time before the World Cup to fix things, and hopefully things will get better.”
The usually reliable Van Wyk also did not have a great game at the back.
The seasoned centre-back shared: “We are a team that is building towards the Fifa World Cup next year and we have to play opponents like Brazil and other top 10 teams in the world in order to be a better team.
“And these are the kind of results you will get when you first start building your blocks. From a player’s perspective, we cannot dwell on results like this. It does bring your confidence down, but it also makes you realise where we are at the moment and where we need to get.
“In the first game, we analysed Brazil and we did not know what to expect. In the second, we became brave, took some risks and we became vulnerable. If you make unforced mistakes like we did, these kind of teams will punish you, and that is what we are going to expect at the World Cup.”
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