Banyana Banayana head coach Desiree Ellis has opened up on their lack of cutting edge, the loss of superstar forward Thembi Kgtalana and the Covid-19 cases ahead of their crucial 2022 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations quarter-final against Tunisia at Le stade Moulay Hassan on Thursday evening.
The Banyana squad who are one victory away from the 2023 FIFA World Cup and a place in the last-four of WAFCON face a relatively inexperienced Tunisia side but with the quality to spring a surprise.
And in the build-up to the clash in Rabat on Thursday evening, they have faced the issues of not being able to bury teams based on chances created, despite winning all three Group C games, which included a win over tournament favouirtes Nigeria, but also the news of Covid-19 infections and Kgtalana’s tournament-ending injury.
But Ellis admits it’s a good problem to have in reference to their conversion rate and hinted it may be only a matter of time before their hard work on the training ground in the scoring heat of the Moroccan summer pays off.
“I’d be more concerned if we weren’t creating any chances because then we don’t have opportunities to score but yes our conversion rate and shots on targets need to improve, we work a lot on that in training, we score a lot more in training! And hopefully, that can translate onto the pitch,” Ellis said in the pre-match press conference.
“But as a coach, if your team isn’t creating anything, I think it’s a bigger concern when they not taking their chances because when we start converting these chances it will show the work that we do put in behind the scenes.
“But it’s not just about now, it’s about clubs at home and players at home doing the work because we have very little time with players and you have many things to work on, making sure the team is fresh in time for the game, so there’s very little time to work on that – we work a lot on finishing, but you right we need to start covering those chances.
“We could get three or four opportunities and the opponents get their one on target, so we’ve discussed it [as a team], we’ve worked on it and hopefully it comes together [against Tunisia].”
Ellis went on to remain coy on who has been ruled out of the game due to the confirmed Covid case in the camp, which was said to be one player and one member of staff and feels the 23-player squad is good enough to deal with anything thrown their way for the continental showpiece.
“With regards to the Covid situation, our medical team is dealing with that, unfortunately, I can’t give any updates yet, we’re still looking at the results only after that we’ll be able to give an update but as I said, the players we have, the squad we selected, we didn’t know this was going to happen but we selected a squad for every event likely,” Ellis added.
“The training went extremely well, losing a player like Thembi was a huge loss but we lost Gabriella Salgado before the tournament started and challenged those [replacements] to step up, which they did in the situation that we are and as I said, the training went extremely well.”
South Africa face the North Africans who finished third in Group B behind Zambia and Cameroon with three points from their three games played thus far.
Story by Lorenz Kohler.
