Banyana Banyana coach Desiree Ellis and her support staff arrived at the OR Tambo International Airport on Friday afternoon to a fanfare, song and dance from their supporters.
They returned from the 2023 Fifa Women’s World Cup as heroines after they reached the Last 16 stage, the first time a South African team has ever achieved that feat.
The likes of SA famous supporters Mama Joy, Sadaam Maake and others had been waiting for their heroines for hours, and when they finally emerged, the airport arrival section was turned into festival atmosphere.
Seemingly tired, the support staff attended the media briefing together with their head coach who mentioned that injuries halted their progress at the world cup.
“We really wanted to get the quarterfinals because we thought the tournament was open and that anyone could have beaten anyone,” said Ellis.
“After the group stages we had to travel to Australia and we had one day to travel – but the injuries contributed to us not going any further.
“We lost Jermaine Seopesenwe and Bambanani Mbani – we had already lost Refiloe Jane but the other players came in and did their best. We thank you supporters back at home. We felt your prayers and saw your messages of support.
“In the 2019 World Cup we did not do as well as we thought we’d do. We scored one goal and did not get any point. We wanted to go back and show we can do better.
“In this world cup, we played much better and thought we should have got a result against Sweden and Argentina – but the players stood out against Italy.
“We knew our players would raise their hands, Linda (Motlhalo) scored her first goal at the world cup, Hilda Mogaia scored two and Thembi Kgatlana also scoring a goal.
“we did not just score goals but we got to the knockout stage and that was the mandate given to us by Safa – but we wanted to go further in the tournament,” she added.
“The resilience of the team was there against Italy and against Netherlands, and if we converted our chances, the result could have gone either way because our team does not give up – we showed it at the Wafcon last year through all the adversity,” she explained further.
Ellis acknowledged the contribution of all her supports staff, the coaches, the analysts and officials and said that they played a tremendous role in the team getting to the Last 16.
“Throughout all the training sessions, we never had one muscle injury, big ups to the trainers. Credit to the players as well for the effort they put as well,” she explained further.
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