Banyana Banyana’s confidence sky high

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Banyana Banyana players will go into their opening FIFA World Cup G match against Sweden with their confidence sky high. The confidence stems from registering a morale boosting 2-nil victory against Costa Rica in their final warm-up match in Christchurch, New Zealand, on Saturday. The players took some time out to meet local kids and sign some autographs at their base in the New Zealand capital, Wellington.

Banyana Banyana’s preparations have not been ideal in the last few weeks. The African champions were embroiled in a financial disagreement with the South African Football Association (SAFA), that led to the World Cup-bound team boycotting the send-off warm-up match against Botswana earlier this month.

But everything was resolved before they left for the World Cup and the team was in high spirits their victory over Costa Rica on Saturday. Banyana Banyana striker Jermaine Seoposenwe says the victory will go a long way in boosting their confidence ahead of the global showpiece.

“We can still get better there is always room for improvement. We minimised the mistakes, that’s really good going into the tournament in terms of how we want to play as a team but it’s a confidence booster for the team. I hope we can take the confidence straight into the World Cup because it’s going to be tough one for us and everyone is in good spirits and ready for the tournament,” says Seoposenwe.

Banyana Banyana defender Noko Matlou says the mood is high in the camp following a victory.

“The mood is very high in the camp after playing Costa Rica because the whole month we have been training. We have been planning ahead not only for Costa Rica, we wanted to see how far we are with our preparations and our aim is to go to Sweden’s game and the preparations went very well and everyone is happy,” says Matlou.

Banyana will make their second appearance at the World Cup. They bowed out in the Group stage in France four years ago. Seoposenwe says there are still some issues to be rectified despite an almost flawless performance against fellow World Cup Qualifiers Costa Rica.

“In the Sweden game for us it’s also going to be different, Costa Rica were not as physical as Sweden is and as tall they didn’t really capitalise on their set pieces. We need to get better at set pieces because we were not tested in this game. We also need to attack quickly and get them on the backfoot in terms of way. We have seen them play versus the way we want to play,” Seoposenwe explains.

Matlou says they need to minimize mistakes against Sweden in the opening match.

“We made little bit of mistakes so we have to learn from that because we were giving balls away and we have to minimize that because when we are playing team like Sweden, once you make a mistake they punish you and we really have to work on that and rectify our mistakes,” Matlou added.

Banyana Banyana are in Group G alongside Sweden, Italy and Argentina. They will kick off their campaign against Sweden in Wellington on Sunday.