The Banyana Banyana of South Africa has opened their campaign at the ongoing African women Championship in Ghana with an emphatic win over defending champions and tournament favourite, the Super Falcons of Nigeria in their first group game, with a 0-1 scoreline in favour of the Banyana Banyana team.
The game which ended a few hours ago, saw the Super Falcons looking nothing like the team of 2016, as they lacked creativity and finishing in front of goal.
The scoreline could have been much different and in favour of the Super Falcons, if the players had converted all their chances…imagine a team having more experience and more exposed players like Super Falcons having over 20 shots at goal, but none were still on target!…an some amateur displays from the so called foreign-based players…
I feel like criticising the team and the coaching crew for the abysmal display in our opening group game, but given the history of the competition and how the Super Falcons usually kick-start their championship defence with poor results and end up winning the competition, I will just take this result on the chin and look forward to a better results in the remaining group games.
The game was a tough one and although the final result did not show our dominance and control of the game, we must give it to the South African team (Banyana Banyana) for coming up with a game plan and seeing it through for 90minutes.
This is the second win for South Africa Banyana Banyana team, after they defeated the Super Falcons in the 2012 edition of the AWCON, as the goal scored by Janine Van Wyk was what gave South Africa a victory on that day. But this team, it was Thembi Katlana’s 82nd minute’s strike that made the difference after 90+minutes and the South African team is happy with this great result.
The African Women Championship that is taking place in Ghana, will also act as the FIFA women world cup qualifier for the final two teams that makes it into the finals. This is the more reason the loss for Nigeria is a bad news, and the win for South Africa a good news, as they just moved a step closer to that world cup ticket.