* She is preparing a strong squad for their defence of their Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (WAfCON) finals in July in Morocco
* While Scorechers coach Lovemore Fazili is preparing to face Angola in next WAfCON qualifier against Angola in October
Maravi Express
South Africa women’s national team head coach, Desiree Ellis is reported to be cautious despite Banyana Banyana beating Malawi Scorchers 3-0 on Saturday in their first of the FIFA calendar window international friendly, whose second will be played tomorrow.
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The former Banyana Banyana player is quoted by Pan-African Football as telling SABC Sport that there is still more work to be done as she uses the two friendlies to prepare a strong squad for their defence of their Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (WAfCON) finals in July in Morocco.
The report says Ellis praised the players for adhering to the technical team’s tactics as they continue to build up for the WAfCON) finals: “Happy with the result, happy with the first half performance and look, we still have work to do. Out of the few things that we worked on worked really well for us.
“Thanks to the technical team that works a lot behind the scenes and the players because they’ve got to buy into what it is that we do. I thought the first half we were really good, created lots of opportunities.”
She further said the way they controlled the game raised the tempo “really high but we expected possibly the tempo to go down in the second half, considering the condition of the field and also considering that the Super League, a lot of teams haven’t played on a regular basis”.
“When I’ve watched league football over the last month, you could see in the second half there was a dip and of course, the conditions on the field, it made the game really scrappy.”
The 62-year-old coach is further quoted as saying her priority in the two friendlies against Malawi is to build depth in the team, so that there’s enough backup should they face challenges with key players.
“I think it’s important that we create depth because people always say, what happens if Jermaine [Seoposenwe] is not there, what happens if Hildah [Magaia] is not there, what happens if Bambanani [Mbane] is not there. So, we’re trying to create that depth because it’s really, really important.”
Scorchers coach Fazili
Her counterpart, Lovemore Fazili, who is preparing to face Angola in the WAfCON qualifier against Angola in October, is quoted by Fam.mw as saying his combination of players did not play as expected — as Banyana Banyana struck early after 13 minutes, the second in the 23rd the spot kick and the third 10 minutes after half time.
After the game, Fazili told Fam.mw: “We had problems in front and midfield and though the defence and goalkeeper tried, we have had a bad day. We have learnt some lessons through the game and going to the second match, we have seen the areas that need to be worked on.
“The main was to test some players especially the new ones so that we know which team we will work with come October and we have seen that some of them need to be drilled more so that we should have the best team by the time we will be facing Angola.”
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The Scorchers were without some influential foreign-based players such as the Chawinga sisters, Tabitha and Temwa since FAM cancelled their request they made to their respective clubs in France and US to be released for the FIFA-sanctioned friendly matches.
Ahead of the match on Friday, coach Fazili was confident of a good show for his subjects, saying he trusted the majority of the domestic league-based to use the absence of the foreign legion to show us what they are capable of delivering.
The two friendlies come at the back of other two the team were afforded with against Zambia Copper Queens in February as the Scorchers are intensifying their preparations for the WAfCON qualifier against Angola in October.
During the February FIFA Women’s International Window, the Scorchers lost the first match 0-2 before clinching a 3-2 win in the second match.
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