Banyana Banyana eye Mozambique scalp in do-or-die COSAFA Cup clash

Banyana Banyana coach Desiree Ellis

FILE - Banyana Banyana coach Desiree Ellis. Photo: Sydney Mahlangu/BackpagePix

Published Oct 4, 2021

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Cape Town – Banyana Banyana face Mozambique in the COSAFA Women’s Championship this afternoon (kick-off 3.30pm), hoping for maximum points after dropping two points in their 0-0 draw against Angola in their Group A match on Friday afternoon in Gqeberha.

The reigning champions struggled against the ultra-defensive Angolan side, but coach Desiree Ellis has devised a method to breach defence-minded teams.

Ellis expressed her disappointment with the performance against Angola but still believes progressing to the semi-finals is still in their hands.

The team had their final training session at The Oval on Sunday afternoon, and defender Janine van Wyk believes the team is in a good mental state to go out and dominate the game against Mozambique today.

“The game against Mozambique for us is probably the most important match of the tournament for us thus far. We know that we have to win it to progress to the semi-finals.

"I think everyone can be expected to go out and dominate, especially after the disappointing result against Angola,” said van Wyk.

“We have reflected on what went wrong, and we rectified a lot in the past two days in our training sessions. We also spoke a lot about the game. Our approach will be different for the game against Mozambique. We are excited about the game, and we know we have to give everything we have against Mozambique.

“They will come out strong against us after our recent result against Angola. We are expecting it to be a tough game but we are in the right frame of mind to go out and get a good result.”

Banyana is currently top of Group A with four points. Mozambique is rock bottom in the group, with just a single point from two games.

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