{"id":41786,"date":"2026-08-07T10:11:41","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T08:11:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=41786"},"modified":"2026-08-07T10:11:41","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T08:11:41","slug":"sa-womens-team-look-to-turn-wafcon-struggles-into-a-wake-up-call","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/sa-womens-team-look-to-turn-wafcon-struggles-into-a-wake-up-call\/","title":{"rendered":"SA women&#8217;s team look to turn WAFCON struggles into a wake-up call"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">South Africa&#8217;s (SA) women&#8217;s national team will be hoping that their unconvincing start and adversity in the Women Africa Cup of Nations (WAFCON) in Morocco will serve as a wake-up call to propel them to greater heights for the rest of the tournament.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">But despite the poor start, Banyana Banyana are just 90 quality minutes away from achieving their first goal, qualifying for the 2027 International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) Women&#8217;s World Cup in Brazil.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">They take on host nation, Morocco, in a quarterfinal match in Rabat on Saturday evening.<\/p>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">Banyana Banyana have been unconvincing in the WAFCON tournament thus far, losing their first match to Tanzania 2-.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">In their second match, they trailed Ivory Coast after 70 minutes and were on the brink of an early exit.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">But they showed resilience to score two late goals and draw 2-all.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">They needed a win and a favour in the last round of group matches and managed to scrape through to the knockout stage.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">Midfielder Nonhlanhla Mthandi is hoping the lukewarm start will serve as a wakeup call for the 2022 continental champions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">&#8211;SABC&#8211;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":14105,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[78,20],"class_list":["post-41786","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":"","news_description":"Banyana are just 90 quality minutes away from achieving their first goal","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/41786","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":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/41786\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41787,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/41786\/revisions\/41787"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=41786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}