The South African Senior Women’s National Team (Banyana Banyana) safely returned home on Friday after participating in the annual Cyprus Women’s Cup.
Banyana Banyana played four matches in the tournament – winning one and losing the other three, but head coach Vera Pauw is not fazed, but is proud of how the team performed.
South Africa was drawn in Group C alongside Mexico, Belgium and the Czech Republic – and finished 10th after losing 1-2 to Finland.
After three months of no action – they last played in October last year in the CAF African Women’s Championships in Namibia – the Sasol-sponsored Banyana Banyana were using the tournament to prepare for the upcoming qualifiers of the All Africa Games and Rio Olympics.
South Africa will again be in action on Friday, 20 March away to Botswana in the first leg qualifier. Kick-off is at 18h00.
They will start camp on Sunday, 15 March in Johannesburg.
SAFA Media caught up with head coach Vera Pauw to get her thoughts of the Cyprus Cup which took place from 2 – 12 March.
Matlhomola Morake: Coach how did the tournament go?
Vera Pauw: If you look at the results, people will think that we did not perform well but in fact we did very well, far above our expectations because players are just coming back from their break. Most of the players haven’t played since October last year, some of them played in November and a few in December but after that there were no games and no training at their clubs.
So in essence we did our pre-season just a week before we played in the Cyprus Cup which, for me, is amazing as we helped the teams we played against to get full preparation ahead of their various competitions and we competed very well against them. They are all ranked within the top 30 on the FIFA World Rankings, and Finland were the semi-finalists of the European Championships. They also have 12 players in Sweden and Germany playing there. We have given almost every player in the squad a game.
We could have won every game we played, in fact there was no game where I felt we had no chance. But we have learnt that if you make a silly mistake you will get punished – whether they score against or they deny you a chance to score. Overall we have done well but the difference between the top and perhaps where we are, that is near the top, is that one or two moments you make a mistake you are in trouble and that is why we need to play these games.
I am overall very happy, it was extremely important to be here (at the Cyprus Cup) and I think the players learnt as much as they could.
MM: Looking at this tournament, is South African football different from European football?
VP: Actually not, the difference is just the level of play. It is just that the countries we played against here are used to playing at this level because if you look at the Nigerian team they also have very quick build-ups and fast in their play, so there’s not so much difference except when you have been playing at this level for a long time it shows. If you look at the game against Finland though, you can see the wet weather conditions did not help and it took the players a long time to adapt.
MM: So is the team going back (to the Cyprus Cup) next year?
VP: I am very happy and pleased to announce that the team will be invited to the tournament again next year, and that is because of our performance on the pitch, they want us to come back and I think that is a compliment in itself, it shows everybody sees our development and I am very proud of that.
MM: You brought in new players, how did they fare?
VP: In general they have done really well and some of them even got to play. Now we need to see how they have developed because they give the team more depth.
MM: No rest for the team, just a couple of days and back in action early next week?
VP: We are facing Botswana in an All Africa Games qualifier away in Botswana. Our players need a few days rest and will return to camp on Sunday (15 March) to start training on Monday (16 March) so we can prepare well for the Botswana clash, especially a faster build up and a faster attack.
MM: How do you keep the players focused on the job at hand and not look down on the opposition as it might happen after playing the highly-ranked teams?
VP: We came here (at the Cyprus Cup) to play this tournament and said we have to grow in terms of our play and next week we need to adapt to what we are going to face against Botswana, but we have played so many times against such opposition that I don’t think we will have issues and also we have enough time for adaptation.
CYPRUS WOMEN’S CUP
2 – 12 March 2015
Group A – Larnaca Group B – Larnaca Group C – Ayia Napa
Canada Australia South Africa
Italy England Belgium
Republic of Korea Finland Czech Republic
Scotland Netherlands Mexico
South Africa’s results in the 2015 Cyprus Women’s Cup:
Wednesday, 4 March
Mexico 2 – 0 South Africa
Friday, 6 March
Belgium 0 – 1 South Africa
Monday 9 March
South Africa 0 – 1 Czech Republic
Wednesday, 11 March
South Africa 1 – 2 Finland
South Africa appearance in Cyprus Women’s Cup:
2008 – DID NOT PARTICIPATE
2009 – 6th position
2010 – 8th
2011 – DID NOT PARTICIPATE
2012 – 10th
2013 – 11th
2014 – DID NOT PARTICIPATE
2015 – 10th position
Tournament winners (finalists in brackets)
2008 Canada (USA)
2009 ENG (Canada)
2010 Canada (New Zealand)
2011 Canada (Netherlands)
2012 France (Canada)
2013 ENG (Canada)
2014 France (ENG)
2015 ENG (Canada)
-TDN
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