28 September 2018– Following their success in the 2018 COSAFA Women’s Championship held recently, Sasol-sponsored Banyana Banyana have moved into the top 50 of the FIFA World Rankings released today (Friday, 28 September 2018).

South Africa has also moved one notch up on the continent – from 5thplace to 4th– swopping places with Equatorial Guinea. The top three are Nigeria, Ghana and Cameroon.

The good news come as Banyana Banyana are going into camp on Monday, 1 October 2018 to start preparations for the upcoming two friendly matches against Chile.

This will be the first ever meeting between the two nations.

“We have been very consistent in our performance this year, and got our best ever position at the Cyprus Women’s Cup earlier this year. Now we will be playing Chile who have qualified for the World Cup – this is another phase of our preparation which is geared for the Africa Cup of Nations in Ghana later this year. The two matches against Chile will test us in all aspects, more so because they recently played the USA, but on the other hand will prepare us well,” said Banyana Banyana head coach Desiree Ellis.

In the first fixture scheduled for Saturday, 6 October 2018, South Africa and Chile will face off at Estadio Sausalito in Vina del Mar, with an 18h30 local time kickoff (23h30 South African time) – SOUTH AFRICA IS FIVE HOURS AHEAD OF CHILE.

The second match will take place in the capital Santiago on Tuesday, 9 October at Estadio Santa Laura.

Kickoff is at 17h00 local time in Chile (22h00 South African time).

The matches are part of preparations for the Africa Cup of Nations tournament scheduled for November in Ghana. The competition will serve as qualifiers for the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup qualifiers to be played in France in June.

The squad departs for Chile on Tuesday, 2 October and return to South Africa on Thursday, 11 October.

 

Top 10 in the latest FIFA Women’s rankings:

  1. USA
  2. Germany
  3. England
  4. France
  5. Canada
  6. Australia
  7. Japan
  8. Brazil
  9. Sweden
  10. Netherlands

*** 50. South Africa ***

 

Top 10 in latest CAF/Africa rankings:

  1. Nigeria
  2. Ghana
  3. Cameroon
  4. South Africa
  5. Equatorial Guinea
  6. Ivory Coast
  7. Morocco
  8. Algeria
  9. Senegal
  10. Mali

*** The next rankings release will be published on Friday, 7 December 2018 ***