The South African Senior Women’s National Team (Banyana Banyana) will face Kenya in the third round of the 2016 Rio Olympic qualifiers.
The South African Senior Women’s National Team (Banyana Banyana) will face Kenya in the third round of the 2016 Rio Olympic qualifiers – this after giving Gabon a 5-nil drubbing in the second leg of the second round of qualifiers on Sunday, 31 May at the Dobsonville Stadium.
The first leg will be away on the weekend of 17-19 July, with the return match scheduled for two weeks later on Saturday, 1 August at a venue still to be announced.
Kenya proceeded to the next round following a one-nil victory at home over Botswana who had won the first leg 2-1 in Gaborone. The East Africans go through on the away goal rule.
“We don’t know much about Kenya, but that Botswana won 2-1 at home and lost 1-nil in Kenya says a lot about them. We have until the end of July to prepare for Kenya so in the coming weeks we will find out more about them, but for now we will celebrate our victory and passage to the next round,” said and elated Banyana Banyana head coach Vera Pauw after the match.
Banyana Banyana won 8-2 on aggregate following their 3-2 win in the first leg.
Jermaine Seoposenwe was also the tormentor in chief in the first leg – she scored a brace and Sanah Mollo chipped in with the third.
On Sunday (31 May 2015) the pair was at it again as Seoposenwe grabbed two goals with the other three coming from Mollo, Amanda Dlamini and Refiloe Jane.
“The start was very slow but as soon as we got into the rythym it became easier for the players and we were able to create chance after chance which led to us getting so many goals. The difference with this match and first leg is that in Gabon we were running too much with the ball, and, because of that, we got into spaces either too late or too early, but the whole week we worked on positional play and being quick in our play, hence the positive results,” said Pauw.
“It’s also good we are scoring. We could have scored three times as much as we scored today, but let us be happy we got this game out of the way and we have done so well for now and we will see the rest later.”
Captain of Banyana Banyana Janine van Wyk was also pleased with the outcome.
“I am very pleased with the result, we came out here on a mission – to win convincingly, and that is exactuly what we did. They made it really tough for us in Gabon and we knew they were going to come out strongly so we had to put up a great performance. We were really clinical in front of goals and I am happy with that,” said Van Wyk.
“We had to come and perform for this crowd which always comes out to support Banyana Banyana and I feel today we had a bigger crowd more than we had in the last match against Botswana. So its good that people hear about us and support us, and that is great to see because it motivates and gives us that confindence on the field.”
Van Wyk says the score line must not make them lose focus.
“We don’t know much about Kenya, we have never played them before so it’s a game that will also be challenging more so when we go to them. We have played Botswana before and beat them, which means if Kenya beat Botswana then they are a much better team. We have to celebrate our win today but focus on our next step,” added Van Wyk.