Ellis lands in Australia ahead of Fifa Women’s World Cup draw

Banyana Banyana coach Desiree Ellis landed in Australia on Thursday ahead of the 2023 Fifa Women’s World Cup draw, which will be held in New Zealand on Saturday.

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The Banyana coach left the country on Tuesday after spending some time watching the on-going Sasol League National Championships in Limpopo.

With Banyana having qualified for their second World Cup in a row after winning the Caf Women’s Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco this year, Ellis is looking forward to the draw of the global tournament which will be co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand.

Banyana have been preparing for the tournament following their Wafcon triumph, playing three friendly games against Brazil, two times, and the Matildas, losing all three matches.

But, Ellis hasn’t let her head drop, and she believes the friendlies against the two nations were an eye-opener for the South Africans, admitting that there is still a lot more the team needs to fix before the start of the tournament.

“The draw is coming up and we are all excited to see who we will be playing against at the World Cup. We are all looking forward to the draw and whoever we will be paired against I know that it is going to be difficult,” said the Banyana mentor.

“We still have to prepare for the tournament and we have to work on some of the mistakes that we made during our international friendly games against Brazil and Australia. The matches were an eye-opener and the girls know that they have to minimise mistakes, that’s the main issue that we have to work on before going to the competition.”

Having played at the World Cup in 2019 in France, Ellis says going to the tournament for the second time says a lot about the team and it shows good improvement over the last few years. But now, they hope to do much better than they did at the previous edition of the tournament, having been knocked out in 2019 without winning a single game.