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Banyana Banyana legends Portia Modise and Noko Matlou have chalked up the team’s struggles at the ongoing Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (Wafcon) in Morocco to shoddy preparations and lack of support.
“I am not surprised to see Banyana struggling,” Modise told Sowetan. “We’ve been talking about this for many years; Banyana lacks support of the country. Banyana don’t get exposure, and that discourages the players.
“For me, Banyana’s struggles at this Wafcon have nothing to do with performances − it’s about how they have been treated,” said Modise, who scored over 100 goals for Banyana.
“They are not motivated because they lack support from Safa and the whole country. You saw what happened with Bafana when they were going to the World Cup; the country was buzzing, but that didn’t happen with Banyana.”
To advance to the quarterfinals, Banyana − boasting just one point and bottom of Group B − need to beat Burkina Faso in their last pool match in Casablanca tonight (10pm SA time) and hope Ivory Coast do them a huge favour by beating Tanzania to qualify for the knockout stage of the tournament.
Banyana, the 2022 Wafcon champions, have been a shadow of their former selves at this year’s tournament, where they have leaked four goals and only scored twice.
Matlou, who played a crucial role when Banyana lifted their only Wafcon trophy to date in Morocco four years ago, feels they didn’t prepare well for this tournament and so are finding the going difficult.
“What makes us struggle is that we didn’t play enough friendlies leading up to the tournament. We played our last friendly against Japan in June ... I think we should have played two more just to get that momentum before the tournament,” Matlou said yesterday.
Even so, both Modise and Matlou are confident that Banyana would still make it to the quarterfinals. “I think we will beat Burkina Faso, and Ivory Coast will win against Tanzania, so we should be okay,” Matlou said.
Modise added: “I have my fingers crossed that we qualify. We shouldn’t struggle to beat Burkina Faso, and Tanzania won’t beat Ivory Coast.”
Sowetan
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