Desiree Ellis explains youthful Banyana Banyana selection

Ellis announced a youthful 22-player squad to host neighbours Lesotho in back-to-back international friendlies at Lucas Moripe Stadium on 22 and 25 February.

Speaking to SABC Sport, Ellis said this is the technical team's final opportunity to broaden their core squad ahead of the 2025 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations and the qualifiers for next year's WAFCON that follow later in the year.

"Look, this is the only opportunity we'll get to bring in a lot of players for us to have a look at because we're not playing this round of qualifiers for 2026 WAFCON, and we felt this was the ideal opportunity," explained Ellis.

"It also gives our players currently playing [abroad] an opportunity to settle in – Hildah [Magaia] has joined a new club, Amo [Motau] has just joined a club.

"There are other things happening in the background as well, a lot of players have joined new clubs, so it's a chance for them to settle, and I'm very happy that Hildah, Thembi [Kgatlana] and Jermaine [Seoposenwe] have scored goals, which is fantastic.

"So it's an opportunity for us to have a look at these players and say, 'Here's an opportunity for you.' In 2019 we took Sibulele [Holweni] and Karabo [Dhlamini] straight from the FIFA U17 Women's World Cup to the 2019 Women's World Cup.

"We took Nthabiseng Majiya, who had just turned 18, to WAFCON [in 2022], so the opportunity is there for them, but it comes down to windows in November last year and the year before where we struggled with players being our injured or visa issues, etc.

"So we're looking at making the core group bigger, but also thinking about the future because we have the 2026 WAFCON qualifiers in October and the WAFCON in March [next year] to qualify for the 2027 Women's World Cup, so we have to look to the future.

"These have been the best players in the league over this last year, and some of them are also playing for our youth national teams."