‘We always knew Andile could save one or two’: Ellis after Banyana’s shoot-out win

Banyana Banyana coach Desiree Ellis said they always knew goalkeeper Andile Dlamini could “save a penalty or two” if Saturday’s Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (Wafcon) quarterfinal against Senegal came to a shoot-out and praised her team’s resilience in prevailing.

With both teams having had their chances — though South Africa shading those but unable to break down a tall, physical Senegal — the game went to the dreaded shoot-out at Stade d’Honneur in Oujda. Dlamini pulled off two huge saves that saw Banyana win 4-1 and progress to their semifinal against Nigeria at Stade El Arbi Zaouli in Casablanca on Tuesday (6pm Moroccan and South African time).

“We’ve been practising penalties and we knew which kickers there were going to be [for Senegal] and that’s why we made the changes we did,” Ellis said afterwards.

“We always knew Andile could save one or two — she’s done it before.

“By the way, this is our first penalty shoot-out win at Wafcon — we lost in 2006 and in 2018 in the final.

“I said the game was going to be tough, but we prevailed in the shoot-out.”

Ellis said Banyana were not overly concerned they lost number one penalty-taker Linda Motlhalo when she limped off injured, replaced by Bongeka Gamede in the 106th minute, just before the shoot-out.

“She couldn’t continue but we were confident we had enough kickers on the pitch, but also confident Andile would make a save or two.

“We just needed to do on the pitch what we had practised in training. Because we have so many players who can take penalties.

“Linda would have been the first, Karabo [Dhlamini] then became the first to step up. She was also one of the walking wounded but the courage and resilience this team has shown, I cannot talk enough about that.”

Banyana battled to break down the big, hard-working Senegalese, though had the better of the game in the second half and extra time without being able to produce enough chances, or bury those they did, to settle the game before the shoot-out.

“I think we had a few chances, I think we could have made better decisions in the final third,” Ellis said.

“We had two really great opportunities where if someone just rolled the ball across [goal] it could have been tapped in. But they had a really good chance at the end where we didn’t pick up and our hearts were in our [throats].

“We knew their gameplan and I thought we dealt well with their long ball. The minute we put the ball on the ground that’s how the opportunity came for the penalty [for a foul on Magaia in extra time, turned down by the match officials and a VAR review], and I’ve had messages from home that it was a penalty.

“But we prevailed. Our last two phrases in our team meeting were, ‘Outplay them and outlast them’, and we outlasted them tonight.”