Banyana Banyana head coach Desiree Ellis says it was important for her players to remain professional even though they knew they stood no chance at progressing at the Hollywoodbets COSAFA Women’s Championship before even kicking the ball in their last group match on Tuesday.
Banyana had a theoretical chance to go to the semi-finals as best runners-up after picking three points in their first two matches, however results in the last Group B matches eliminated the host nation before their match with Eswatini in Dobsonville on Tuesday.
Banyana won the encounter 3-0, with goals coming from Thubelihle Shamase, who overall scored five goals for South Africa at the tournament.
Ellis says the players were disappointed, knowing before kick-off that they had no chance to go to the semi-finals but she spoke to them about professionalism and making the game a memorable.
“Well unfortunately before we even started the game we knew that we were no longer going through but the disappointment on the faces of the players was evident,” said Ellis after the match.
“But we just said ‘let’s go out there and respect the game. Let’s be professional and still go out there and play, still go out there and show the fans why you are in the team and go out there enjoy yourself and perform and play for each other’. I think today we did that.
“And we put up a good performance and I said when this is all over, because we knew we were out of the competition we wouldn’t go any further, I said ‘let’s make this a memorable game. Let everybody remember this one game for the performance that we put it’.
“And I want to say congratulations to Thube for scoring a hat-trick today, she’s scored for us in practically every game and she showed her quality once again. She’s been part of Banyana for a while, both the twins and a few other players. There are a lot of players that got first caps at this tournament.
“To the players, I’m just disappointed for them more than anything because of everything that they’ve put in, in the short little time that we were together.”
