Banyana Banyana continue to be the shining example of what can be achieved with some willpower, belief and professionalism in the otherwise perennially underachieving SA football.
In the men’s game, Mamelodi Sundowns — who also have a successful women’s team that was crowned inaugural Caf Women’s Champions League winners in November — buck the trend of the malaise, competing annually at the highest level in the male Champions League.
Sundowns and Banyana are the exceptions to the trend of SA football continually moving backwards.
The SA national women’s 2-1 win against 11-time champions Nigeria in their opening Group C encounter of the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (Wafcon) in Rabat, Morocco, on Monday should not be blown out of proportion.
Banyana have a long way to go to win the tournament. But as a first step towards ending their many-time bridesmaid status at the Wafcon — they have been runners-up five times, including three final defeats against Nigeria — a win against the tournament favourites could not have been a better start.
That the SA national women’s team can even go to a Wafcon as among the pre-tournament favourites, shows how far they have gone in eclipsing their male counterparts, who regularly battle to qualify for the Africa Cup of Nations.
Safa’s launch of a 14-team national women’s league, now complete with a sponsor — the Hollywoodbets Super League — in 2019 was a major step towards improving the female game.
Bafana Bafana’s best finishes in the Cup of Nations in the past 20 years have been quarterfinal placings on home soil in 2013 and in Egypt in 2019.
The SA Football Association (Safa) trumpets the success of women’s football as evidence that some things are going right under its custodianship, yet the resources allocated to the female game remain meagre compared with those given to men’s football.
Safa’s launch of a 14-team national women’s league, now complete with a sponsor — the Hollywoodbets Super League — in 2019 was a major step towards improving the female game, even if that league is hugely under-resourced compared with the Premier Soccer League.
Sasol’s backing of SA women’s football for many years must be recognised for its part in female soccer’s success.
The Safa women’s academy at the University of Pretoria’s High Performance Centre has yielded players capable of being signed by clubs globally.
On Monday one could see the confidence and comfort in taking the game to the Super Falcons with players experienced in European conditions.
It’s a confidence too often glaringly lacking when Bafana take the field, and usually more noticeable in their opponents, who almost always have more European-based players in their ranks.
The scale of the men’s game is bigger than women’s football in SA, so fixing it will take bigger fixes from Safa. But the resources available to the men’s game are also larger. Banyana continue to show the way for the men’s game to follow.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.