In a notably gloomy winter in SA, Banyana Banyana have brought a much-needed ray of sunshine into our lives.
The war in Ukraine, the post-Covid economic situation, high prices on supermarket shelves and at filling station pumps, and the general state of our country and its leadership have cast a dark cloud on an already chilly SA.
There are so many problems South Africans have to confront, including rampant poverty, crushing unemployment and a vice-like middle-class crunch, that the scourge of gender-based violence too often seems to be overshadowed.
So watching Banyana stylishly prance past opponents on the fields of Rabat and Casablanca with an arrogance and swagger of a team so assured in their abilities, basking in the north African summer sunshine, has not just brought much-needed warmth. Hopefully, it also reminds SA that women are the rock on which the country is built, and that the “fairer” sex deserves better.
As they face hosts Morocco in front of a packed, hostile Stade Moulay Abdellah in Rabat on Saturday night, SA’s brave women will be up against it.
The women’s national football team deserve to be celebrated for their achievement, for the outstanding athletes they are and ambassadors they have been for the country on a global stage
North African crowds are among the most hostile in global football. The wall of noise they are capable of producing can be impregnable.
Just ask Pitso Mosimane. His two-time champions Al Ahly were unable to beat Wydad Athletic in Casablanca in such a cauldron to add a third Caf Champions League title in late May.
Having slayed 11-time champions Nigeria in the semifinals, Morocco will be determined to lift the Women’s Afcon trophy on home soil. Banyana, increasingly unconvincing since they started with a huge win against Nigeria in the group stage, should by all rights lose.
If they manage a monumental feat and win, and even if they don’t, the women’s national football team deserve to be celebrated for their achievement, for the outstanding athletes they are and ambassadors they have been for the country on a global stage, not patronisingly as a female team in a male sport.
It is now obvious, win or lose in the Wafcon final, that the SA Football Association now needs to pay Banyana the same as Bafana Bafana ... yesterday.
And in celebrating them for reaching the final, and perhaps winning it, every South African, and every South African male in particular, can reflect on their own lives and how they, too, can be better.
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