Johannesburg - Banyana Banyana coach Vera Pauw might have sounded defeatist when she said that they’ll probably be “hammered” by the US and New Zealand, but her tone was that of a confident person.
That’s because she feels coming up against the world champions and four-time winners of the Olympics, US, will prepare them well for the global showpiece where they will face a baptism of fire.
Banyana Banyana have been grouped with the hosts Brazil, China and Sweden. Their preparations for the tournament are in their final stretch as they will face the US on July 9 in Chicago and then end it against New Zealand on July 28 before they take on Sweden six days later in the global showpiece in Rio de Janeiro.
These two games come after their trip to Netherlands where they played two matches, losing 1-0 and 2-0.
“We have played some of the biggest opponents on the continent which included playing Botswana in the African Women’s Cup of Nations qualifiers,” Pauw said. “We ended that by playing against Zimbabwe who have also qualified for the Olympics.
“The plan was then to play against some of the best teams in the world, it was a conscious decision to not tackle the top five just yet so that we don’t throw the team at the deep end. We convinced Netherlands, thanks to the contacts that I have there as my home country because the other countries were not available.
“It was a tremendous week, the game they offered us limited our space and time on the ball which prepared us well.“We learned that we can cope at that level, but need to be able to concentrate for most of the match because we lost the game through moments of a lapse in concentration. The US is the next level.
“They’re the world champions and this will be the biggest game of our team. We can get hammered. It could be 8-0 or 9-0. But even then it would be worth our while because we will be preparing for the Olympics.
“After the US we will play New Zealand, who are a bit lower than the US but are higher than us. We might get hammered there too, but we should play our game and these matches will test us well for the Olympics.”
Banyana Banyana have been given a two-day rest, finishing training early yesterday and will only return to camp on Saturday night to resume their preparations. Pauw has been pushing the team to raise their game up a notch with just over a month to go before the Olympics start.
“We will face Brazil in the Olympics, who are two places below US, we have to be ready for it,” Pauw said.
“The only way we can be ready for it is to play the likes of US. It will help us to get used to the pressure of playing against a top team. But it’s mostly to get used to the technical level of that stage.
“The bigger picture after the Olympics is to make sure that the world doesn’t ignore us. After the match against Netherlands we suddenly had teams looking to play against us, we don’t have the time for it now. They now suddenly consider us as a nation worthy of playing because they can’t ignore us anymore. The most important thing is to have these players earn professional contracts abroad.”
The Star