Banyana Banyana coach Maude Khumalo believes winning their opening game of the Hollywoodbets Cosafa Women’s Championship provides a huge motivational boost for her young squad’s journey ahead.
SA opened their Cosafa Women’s Championship campaign on a high after beating Namibia 1-0 on Tuesday evening at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium.
Tshogofatso Motlogelwa scored the only goal of the game late in the second half, which saw Banyana win their opening fixture of Group A.
SA are pitted against Namibia, Eswatini, and Seychelles in Group A.
They will lock horns with Eswatini next Friday at the Isaac Wolfson Stadium (3pm).
Eswatini are now on top of the log in Group A due to a better goal difference after beating Seychelles 6-0 in their opening fixture.
A win in their next fixture will put Banyana in good standing to win group stages and progress to the next round of the competition.
Khumalo believes the win on Tuesday will bring calmness to her players as they prepare for Seychelles.
“Winning the first game with such a young team, it gives them motivation, especially playing against such a strong team, it gives them motivation that they can do better collectively,” the coach said.
“We don’t have much experienced players but the only thing we emphasised to players is that ‘let’s stick to our strength of being creative’ and also keep the ball possession.
“That is why we managed to have the ball possession and starved the Namibian side.
“The girls are very happy but they know they had to work for it.
“I am happy how they applied themselves today.
“We knew that Namibia is a strong team, last year we played against them with the Under 20s, we also played against them when they were preparing for Swaziland.
“We knew they have a strong team, a very physical and hard-running team.
“We only had two days to prepare so we had to work on our strengths in the sense that we keep the ball.
“Also, [not to] allow Astreria Angula to get a chance to score because she was the target player, we planned our game around her.
“We blocked the pass from getting to her and that is why you saw her moving from one side to the other side.
“We were very aware of what Namibia is capable of and we knew it was not going to be an easy game.”
Namibian coach Nicholas Jacobs applauded Banyana on winning the match.
He said they would have been happy with a draw but unfortunately, that was not the case.
“A draw would have been OK but I think SA edged us in many departments,” Jacobs said.
“They were winning all the balls and controlled matters better than us.
“Congratulations to them for winning the match.”
HeraldLIVE
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