Banyana Banyana shot stopper Andile Dlamini has downplayed talk that the recently crowned women’s African champions are one of the teams to beat at the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup.
The 29-year-old prefers to be labelled as underdogs instead because many teams from all the continents will be participating in the women’s global showcase, all with the same goal of winning the trophy.
“World Cup is a different level, there are the defending champions, the USA, and there are a lot of countries coming there to bring their A-game,” Dlamini told Extra-Time on GagasiFM.
“We have a very good country. We just have to perform to the best of our ability. If you leave everything on the field of play, you will never regret it. The less you concede, then you have high chances of winning a game.”
The 2022 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations Goalkeeper of the Tournament, boasting three clean sheets and only conceding three goals, revealed that motivated Desiree Ellis’ charges to go for gold.
“Having a packed stadium helped us. They didn’t know that South Africans love and enjoy playing football when there are a lot of fans. Intimidating us with lasers pushed us to be more hungry to win.”
“Also, the silver [2019 medals] motivated everything. I’m just happy that we won. There is team spirit, and it was on another level.”
Heading to the 2023 FIFA World Cup co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand, Banyana will be making their second successive appearance. Their first ever qualification was in 2019.
The African Champions will be aiming to improve their performance from the last edition, which was a complete disaster. They were eliminated in the group stages after losing all their three matches. They conceded eight goals.
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