Banyana Banyana coach Desiree Ellis is confident her African queens can overturn the 1-0 deficit against Nigeria and book their ticket to Paris 2024 tomorrow in Pretoria.
South Africa’s national women’s football team were beaten by their hosts in Abuja in Friday’s Olympic tournament qualifying first-leg playoff, thanks to Obusayo Ojibade’s 42nd-minute penalty.
Following the defeat in the Nigerian capital, Ellis explains: “We didn’t have someone who could put the foot on the ball and I thought the way we gave the penalty away we could have handled the situation much better.”
Speaking to Safa media, the boss adds: “As we say it’s halftime and we’re looking forward to taking the game to Pretoria. We’re going back to familiar surroundings.”
Now the likes of Thembi Kgatlana, Jermaine Seoposenwe and their continental champion teammates are in a race to recover from their travels to be ready for a shot at redemption at Loftus Versfeld.
Kaapse legend Ellis explains: “Our recovery has to be brilliant and everybody has to take due recovery protocols so that we recover really, really well because there’s very little time in between.
“We have to look at the footage to see how we can rectify things.
“We need to score but we need to be aware to not concede and make sure that we score first to get the game back on an even keel and then try to control it.”
The winner of the playoff will join world champions Spain, Brazil and Japan in Group C in Paris.