Ellis says South Africa aim is to go home with WAFCON medal

South Africa women’s national team head coach Desiree Ellis says their mission in Morocco against Ghana in third and fourth place playoff of the CAF Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (WAFCON), is to make sure that they return home heads held high.

Banyana Banyana failed in their bid to defend the crown after they lost to nine-time champions Nigeria, and they will face a Ghana side, who went out after losing against Morocco in the other semifinals.

Ahead of the fixture at the Larbi Zaouli Stadium in Casablanca, Morocco, Ellis believes despite missing on their sole target of retaining the title, they still have another mission to finish third and get the bronze medal.

“Obviously the ambition was to get to the final and go back-to-back, a bit of disappointment in not reaching it but we still have a game to play. We want to end on a high note and obviously go home with our heads held high,” said Ellis as quoted by SAFA Media.

“We’ve got one training session to go today, there’s not a lot that you can do, we’ve done so many things during the tournament. We have played against Ghana and it’s always difficult to play the same team twice in the tournament, but we’ll give it our best shot.

“This is not the match we wanted to play, but it’s in front of us. We want to go home with something, not just for Gaby (Salgado) but for Jermaine (Seoposenwe) as well. We were hoping to give her a fantastic send-off, but unfortunately it didn’t work that way.”

South Africa played Ghana in the group stages with Banyana emerging 2-0 winners. This will be South Africa’s fifth match in the tournament after three wins – Ghana, Mali and Senegal – along with a draw and a defeat against Tanzania and Nigeria respectively.