Ellis Demands Best Performance Against Senegal In WAFCON Quarter-Final

Banyana Banyana coach Desiree Ellis emphasized that her team must be at their absolute best for their 2024 CAF Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (WAFCON) quarter-final clash against Senegal on Saturday.

Banyana Banyana secured their spot in the knockout stages with a dominant 4-0 win over Mali on Monday night at the Honneur Stadium in Oujda, Morocco. This impressive victory concluded their group stage campaign, following an opening 2-0 win against Ghana and a 1-1 draw with Tanzania.

These results saw the African champions finish atop Group C with seven points, while Ghana placed second. Mali dropped to third due to an inferior goal difference, with both teams on four points, and Tanzania was eliminated.

The African champions are set to face Senegal in the last eight on Saturday at 21:00 SAST.

“We have a couple of days to have a good look at them, but they’ve shown in a very difficult group that they can fight it out with the best and we have to be at our absolute best to get a result because again it’s not going to be easy. I don’t think any game has been easy at this WAFCON, it shows that teams on the continent are improving – every FIFA International window there are countries playing,” said Dr Ellis. 

“This WAFCON is not just a one-sided tournament where you can predict an outcome. The games are so tight and it’s one moment of magic or one moment of madness or even a mistake by someone and then that’s it.  

“This shows how tight the games are, so we have to be on top of our game against Senegal. They showed against Zambia and Morocco where they had very tight games but tonight was a statement and showed what we can do, and we’ve got to do even better.” 

Banyana Banyana came into the clash with Mali needing a draw to stay top of the group, but they ran riot against the West Africans. 

Ellis has now finished top of the group with Banyana Banyana in three consecutive tournaments – 2018, 2022, 2024. 

Two strikes in either side of the half in Oujda were enough to see the South Africans march on to their next assignment. Co-captains Lebohang Ramalepe and Refiloe Jane gave the advantage in the first stanza, while Hilda Magaia and substitute Ronnel Donnelly did the damage after the recess. 

The quartet all scored their first goals in the tournament, with Donnelly coming off the bench to register her first ever Banyana Banyana goal. 

The defending champions have now defeated Mali in all three of their meetings in a WAFCON and have scored 10 goals with no reply from the opposition. 

“We knew in the two games that we played that we are better than that, we consistently worked on what we need to improve on, sometimes it doesn’t happen overnight but today it was a statement of intent, statement of resilience, a statement of who we are.  

“We showed the quality that we have, but we need to use this to fuel ourselves because it doesn’t matter the result you are always looking for improvement,” added Dr Ellis. 

The African Champions have now scored in all of their last nine games in the WAFCON. 

In other quarter-final matchups, Mali will travel to Rabat to face hosts Morocco on Friday; and on the same day in Casablanca Nigeria will be up against Zambia – the winner here takes on the victors between South Africa and Senegal. 

Algeria and Ghana will face off in Berkane on Saturday.