Africa-Press – South-Africa. Banyana Banyana coach Desiree Ellis said star goalkeeper Andile Dlamini won’t make the trip to London to face Australia on Saturday because of a family bereavement.
However, Ellis’s biggest disappointment was that one of her new squad players, Cynthia Makete, had to be excluded from the team because of paperwork.
Ellis confirmed that the defender will miss the game because of receiving her passport late, something that meant she couldn’t apply for a visa.
Ellis also couldn’t call up Noko Matlou and Noxolo Cesane because of visa issues where they are playing their football.
Ellis said prospective Banyana players have to jack up their documentation game to avoid such mishaps.
“Cynthia didn’t have a passport. She only got it on Monday and that means she also can’t travel,” Ellis said.
“I say this all the time that if you aspire to play for the national team, you must have your travel documents in order.
“That doesn’t just apply to the local players, but the ones who are abroad. You’d find that some don’t even have SA documents and passports.
“There was no way we could replace her because of the visa issues.”
Ellis said they need to apply the lessons from their Brazil excursion, where they were soundly beaten by the South American champions.
One of those issues was defensive and the long-standing goal-scoring issue that’s continued to plague them.
“We need to be better in all departments, especially defensively because those ones really need to come to an end,” Ellis said.
“Those are costing us, and we need to be braver on the ball. We also need to be more clinical in front of goal.
“In the first game against Brazil, we could have been 2-0 up if we were more clinical in front of goal. We also need to trust our own abilities and at times we don’t always trust each other on the pitch.”
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