Ellis encouraged about Banyana Banyana future, despite USA loss

Head coach of the South African women’s national team, Desiree Ellis is not despondent after losing two consecutive matches to former world champions, USA. 

If anything, the current CAF Women’s Coach of the Year is elated about the future of the senior women’s national team as the planning for the TotalEnergies CAF Women’s AFCON and Olympic qualifiers continues. 

The reigning African champions, who weren’t in action during this past week’s TotalEnergies CAF WAFCON qualifiers made use of their time to sharpen their preparations for the next round with two friendly matches against the US, which went in favour of the former world champions by 3-0 in the first game and 2-0 in the final match.  

Summarising the trip to the US, Ellis said there were a lot of positives to take out from both matches, irrespective of the actual result, adding that she was excited about the future of the team. 

“I thought the team played really well. We wanted to test players and we saw really brave performances by the team. We defended well, we had a couple of half chances, and I am really excited for the future”. 

“We had lot of personnel not here, so it was also good to see how others stood up and how brave others were. A lot of players raised their hand, and this gives us food for thought going forward. We always said we wanted to make the core group bigger. We are looking at the new cycle, which has started. We have the Olympics next year but there is also 2027. We are giving more opportunities to new players to see what they can do, and I think the future is really bright,” said an encouraged Ellis. 

Since taking over as national team coach, Ellis has transformed Banyana Banyana into one of the most formidable sides on the African continent, with a TotalEnergies CAF WAFCON gold medal to their name and being amongst the trio of African nations that made it into the knockout stages of this year’s FIFA Women’s World Cup.