Banyana Banyana will return home on Friday morning having achieved a 10th place finish at the Cyprus Women’s Cup.
The tournament is by invitation only and consists of 11 national teams from abroad (Europe, North America and Asia) with South Africa being the only African team as the 12th nation.
Placed in the lower-ranked nations group, Group C, the Sasol-sponsored national team had to battle it out with Belgium, Czech Republic and Mexico.
Banyana Banyana were using the tournament as preparation for the All Africa Games and Rio Olympics qualifiers which are due to get underway soon.
“We learnt quite a lot from this tournament, we are taking a lot out of here. We have already started building a foundation from the eight months we were preparing for the African Women’s Championship last year, and now the journey continues towards the qualifiers for the All Africa Games and Olympics.
"Whatever we learnt from this tournament we will definitely take into our upcoming matches,” said midfielder Amanda Dlamini.
“We should hold our heads up high, we did all we could and this was a great experience and learning curve. We have a new coach and systems to adapt to, but we are grateful that we got the opportunity to come and play as a team to regroup and try and gel again so that we can dominate in our continent.
"These are the tournaments that give us that exposure and experience. Now the crucial thing is that whatever we learnt here we need to apply in the games that we will be playing in the qualifiers.”
With the All Africa Games qualifiers set to start later this month, coach Vera Pauw and her charges are geared and ready to take on the African teams. Captain Janine Van Wyk is confident ahead of Banyana Banyana resuming their duties in Africa.
“The whole team is confident, especially after the tournament even though we won one match (1-0 against Belgium) and lost three (against Mexico, Czech Republic and Finland).
“We are going to give a good challenge against the African teams going forward. It will test us to see how much we have learnt playing against these top European teams. We have to go into our qualifying matches very positive of getting good results and show our opponents what we have been preparing for,” she said.
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