ANATHI WULUSHE

Banyana Banyana are deep in preparation for the preliminary phase of the Fifa Women’s World Cup 2027 playoff tournament in Morocco in late November.

Coach Desiree Ellis and captain Refiloe Jane expressed concern that SA were not familiar with some of their prospective opponents.

They were speaking in KuGompo City, where the squad trained last week.

The team begin their preparations with matches against Taipei, Ecuador and Uzbekistan.

They have never played against Taipei and Ecuador though they have taken on Uzbekistan once.

Banyana have to take the long route in their quest to make it to their third World Cup in Brazil next year.

They failed to make the semifinals of the 2026 Women's Africa Cup of Nations, missing out on automatic qualification for the global showpiece.

SA will have to finish in the top two of the mini-league format in Morrocco in few weeks' time to advance to the final playoff round, scheduled for February.

"It is going to be a difficult tournament for the team," Jane said.

"But we are really working hard as a nation to [to ensure we qualify] for the next tournament, which is the World Cup.

"So, we are making sure that whatever we do we don't forget the bigger picture and we put all our eggs in that basket because we couldn't do it at the first chance.

"Now it is another opportunity for us to do it. So, we have to keep it away for them.

"Well, it is difficult [playing] teams [from] different continents.

"It's teams that you don't usually play against.

"So, it's going to be interesting to see how we play up against them.

"But we know that they are very different teams that are kind of taken for granted."

Banyana fought valiantly to beat Nigeria 2-1 in August and moved on to the next round.

They prevailed despite being underdogs and Jane said the victory was confidence inspiring.

"Football, it doesn't even go by rankings, it's about the form on the day,"

"Well when we beat Nigeria obviously it gave us confidence, but we know that it's a totally different ball game [this time around].

Ellis said: “It is also quite interesting that we have played Uzbekistan before but are yet to meet Chinese Taipei and Ecuador.

"We should focus on this phase of the competition and not think ahead of ourselves about the next stage.

"But we are confident that we can navigate our way to the top two.

"We are also fortunate that all our players will have plenty of minutes under their belts.

"We work sort of preparation soon.

"It's a new competition; it's a new game.

"We know how big the tournament is.

"We know we need to end top two to give ourselves another opportunity, and if there's any team that can do this, it's Banyana.

"They've shown the resilience, they've shown the grip, they've shown that they can come back from any adversity in the past.

"This is another opportunity for us to show," she said.