Banyana Banyana coach Desiree Ellis has named her 23-woman squad to face Tanzania for their two-legged Olympic Third Round qualifier.
The squad has been in camp in Johannesburg since last week to give the coach enough time to select her best team ahead of the matches to be played on 23 February in Tanzania and 27 February in Mbombela Stadium, Mpumalanga.
As expected, the squad is dominated by players from Mamelodi Sundowns ladies’ soccer team with five players followed by the University of the Western Cape with four players. Ellis said they have studied their opponents and not taken anything for granted.
“We know of the opponents, we have footage and we’ve already analysed them, the same way I’m sure as they have analysed us. They beat Togo, who were at the last WAFCON, and that’s no mean feat. They also beat Botswana recently to qualify for this stage. We all know how good Botswana is and what happened back then. So, we’re not taking anything for granted,” said Ellis.
The coach said some players are not available due to injuries or studies, notable absence. The team will be joined by international-based players later this week in Tanzania.
We’ve worked a lot on some of the things this week, obviously waiting for the international-based players to meet us on the other side and then continue with our preparations.
Meanwhile President of the South African Football Association, Dr Danny Jordaan, cautioned the team that it won’t be an easy match and they must expect a hostile crowd.
“We wish Banyana Banyana all the best. It’s going to be a difficult game, but we believe in this team. This team has shown over a period of time that they can produce when the pressure is on. We saw it in Morocco, in Rabat, in the WAFCON final, when we only had Mama Joy in the crowd. They had the whole stand, but Mama Joy silenced them towards the end of the match, and we became the African champions,” explained Jordaan.
Banyana last qualified for the Olympics at the 2016 Rio Games after making their debut four years earlier in London.
Here is the Banyana full squad:
