Bantwana knocked out of World Cup qualifiers

The Bantwana win in Adis Ababa was not enough to take them to the next round. The national Under-17 side went down 3-1 on aggregate after beating Ethiopia 1-0 at home in the second leg of the third round of the Under-17 FIFA Women™s World qualifiers.

Coach Simphiwe Dludlu says the team was better prepared for the encounter this time.

œYeah we had a bit of better preparations in this round of going to play against Ethiopia because we came in on a Sunday; we trained on Monday on a Tuesday we played a friendly match against UJ and that gave us a bit of edge to say this where we want to improve, this how we are going to apply ourselves even when we going to Ethiopia.

"The details were specific and it was easier for us to pinpoint because we had something to compare with, we had something to look at and say this is how we played said Dludlu

Bantwana had received a bye in the first round and their second round opponents Kenya withdrew from the competition following FIFA suspension due to government interference in football.

The third round against Ethiopia was their first and Dludlu believes more game time would have given the team a better chance to qualify.

Having players young as 15 years old playing at international level gives coaches more time to build formidable teams, Dludlu believes this is more sustainable.

œWe brought in a number of young players into the team, the main aim of that is to do a long term development and make sure we have a long term plan in place so that we are able to compete now in 2022, because we were already late for Qualifiers in 2022 in terms of preparations, we had never played any friendly we had never done anything the Banatwana mentor added.

Apart from match fitness is not the only positive of playing regular but confidence plays a huge in doing well at international level.

By Busisiwe Mokwena