{"id":41130,"date":"2026-07-30T16:03:50","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T14:03:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=41130"},"modified":"2026-07-30T16:05:25","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T14:05:25","slug":"banyana-banyana-confident-they-can-bounce-back-at-wafcon","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/banyana-banyana-confident-they-can-bounce-back-at-wafcon\/","title":{"rendered":"Banyana Banyana confident they can bounce back at WAFCON"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><span style=\"font-family: var(--global--font-secondary); font-size: var(--global--font-size-base);\">It is still early days in the Women\u2019s Africa Cup of Nations (WAFCON) football tournament in Morocco, and South Africa\u2019s (SA) Banyana Banyana are already feeling the pressure.<\/span><\/div>\n<div id=\"x_ms-outlook-mobile-body-separator-line\">\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Banyana Banyana have to bounce back following their disappointing defeat to Tanzania in their opening match if they want to progress.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>However, winger Linda Motlhalo, who has scored seven goals at the WAFCON since her debut in 2016, is confident they can beat Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso in their remaining two matches and qualify for the playoffs.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>What lies ahead for the 2022 WAFCON champions, Banyana Banyana, is their toughest match of the group stage.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Ivory Coast made their intentions clear with a 4-1 drubbing of Burkina Faso on Monday.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Banyana\u2019s surprise 2-1 defeat to Tanzania was a bittersweet moment for Motlhalo.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>She celebrated her 100th appearance in SA colours, but the result was not what they expected.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\u201cAs players, we understand that this is football and sometimes things won\u2019t go our way, but I think the biggest thing is to dig deep, and it\u2019s a tournament; it\u2019s a long tournament. There\u2019s a lot of games that are going to be played, so for us it\u2019s to dig deep and take one game at a time.\u201d<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Despite the setback, 23-year-old midfielder Isabella Ludwig is confident that the team will bounce back and advance to the knockout stage.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Ludwig says, \u201cI think obviously not the result that we wanted, but I think going into the next game, we\u2019ll try and improve on all the mistakes we made and rectify those areas, and hopefully get the result that we need going into this next game.\u201d<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Banyana Banyana need to finish at least second in Group B to advance to the quarter-finals and have any chance of qualifying for the 2027 FIFA Women\u2019s World Cup in Brazil.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Motlhalo says that dream is still very much alive.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>She says, \u201cThere are still more games to play, and they\u2019re very important games, and we\u2019re not going to put ourselves under pressure. We just, we know what we\u2019re capable of, and we\u2019ll just do the work when we get to the field.\u201d<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>If the 2022 champions beat the West Africans on Friday, it will blow the group wide open.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>If they lose, then progression to the next round will become an extremely tough ask, if not impossible.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\u2014SABC\u2014<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":32000,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-41130","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Banyana Banyana have to bounce back following their disappointing defeat to Tanzania in their opening match if they want to progress.","published_date":"","news_description":"Banyana Banyana have to bounce back following their disappointing defeat to Tanzania in their opening match if they want to progress.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/41130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/41130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41132,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/41130\/revisions\/41132"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=41130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}