It is still early days in the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (WAFCON) football tournament in Morocco, and South Africa are already feeling the pressure.
Banyana Banyana have to bounce back following their disappointing defeat to Tanzania in their opening match if they want to progress.
However, winger Linda Motlhalo, who has scored seven goals at the WAFCON since her debut in 2016, is confident they can beat Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso in their remaining two matches and qualify for the playoffs.
What lies ahead for the 2022 WAFCON champions, Banyana Banyana, is their toughest match of the group stage.
Ivory Coast made their intentions clear with a 4-1 drubbing of Burkina Faso on Monday.
Banyana’s surprise 2-1 defeat to Tanzania was a bittersweet moment for Motlhalo.
She celebrated her 100th appearance in South African colours, but the result was not what they expected.
“As players, we understand that this is football and sometimes things won’t go our way, but I think the biggest thing is to dig deep, and it’s a tournament; it’s a long tournament. There’s a lot of games that are going to be played, so for us it’s to dig deep and take one game at a time.”
Despite the setback, 23-year-old midfielder Isabella Ludwig is confident that the team will bounce back and advance to the knockout stage.
Ludwig says, “I think obviously not the result that we wanted, but I think going into the next game, we’ll try and improve on all the mistakes we made and rectify those areas, and hopefully get the result that we need going into this next game.”
Banyana need to finish at least second in Group B to advance to the quarter-finals and have any chance of qualifying for the 2027 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Brazil.
Motlhalo says that dream is still very much alive.
She says, “There are still more games to play, and they’re very important games, and we’re not going to put ourselves under pressure. We just, we know what we’re capable of, and we’ll just do the work when we get to the field.”
If the 2022 champions beat the West Africans on Friday, it will blow the group wide open.
If they lose, then progression to the next round will become an extremely tough ask, if not impossible.
-Reporting by Mahudi Molapo.
