6 April 2023– The South African senior women’s team has wrapped up a local camp held in Johannesburg over the last few days and they will depart to Serbia to face the Europeans in an away friendly international.
The SASOL-sponsored Banyana Banyana depart on Thursday evening (6 April 2023) and they will lock horns with the Serbians on Easter Monday (10 April2023) at the SC FA of Serbia -Stara Pazova. The friendly international is part of coach Desiree Ellis’ preparations for the FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand in July.
The local camp commenced on 27 – 31 March 2023 with only local-based players and the team dispersed on 31 March – 2 April to allow them to return their respective clubs and honour their Hollywoodbets fixtures. They returned to camp on 3 April 2023.
Ellis was impressed with the work they were able to achieve during the local camp.
“I think it was a worthwhile and fruitful exercise bringing in the players early and working on somethings that we needed to work on. I think it really helped us,” said the coach.
“We had a bit of a break with players going back to play [in the Hollywoodbets Super League] and when they returned we could see players showing up. Nicole Michael scored a hattrick, Thubelihle Shamase scored a bicycle kick and Katlego Moletsane did well as a goalkeeper. This is what we want to see when players go back to their clubs.”
She said she could see the commitment and the amount of work and effort they gave to the cause during the camp.
“The attitude, the work rate and effort was all there. We worked a lot and could see slowly but surely, the improvements. Now we go to the next part of the camp where we travel to Serbia and we meet the overseas based players.
Bambanani Mbane will not travel with the team on Thursday but will join her Banyana Banyana team-mates in Europe on Saturday 8 April 2023. Mbane initially withdrew from the camp due to the illness of a close family member but is now able to travel.