WAFCON: South Africa must stick to ‘our style of play’ to beat Senegal – Dhlamini

South Africa women’s national team defender Karabo Dhlamini has warned her teammates to be wary of a ‘good’ Senegal side when they face off in the quarterfinals of the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (WAFCON) at the Honneur Stadium in Oujda, Morocco on Saturday.

The African champions finished top of Group C on seven points – two wins and a draw, while the West Africans scraped through as one of the third-best placed teams. Ahead of the last eight clash, Dhlamini admits they will have to be on top of their game to reach the last four.

“Senegal are a good team. We know they have tall players, which is something we lack but we have played against teams with taller players and dealt well with them, meaning we’re ready to cope with that again against Senegal. At the end of the day, it will be 11 against 11, same ball. To beat Senegal we need to stick to our style of play,” said Dhlamini as quoted by Sowetan.

“People should continue believing, but as players we take it each game as it comes. We don’t make promises as we don’t want to think too far ahead of ourselves. In tournaments like this, sometimes you can play beautiful football and lose, sometimes you can play badly and win… and days are not the same.”

On using a different venue for the quarters clash, she said: “If I am being honest, it’s not about the stadium you play in but it’s about how you play as a team. So we might have played all our group stages in Oujda, but that doesn’t give us any advantage. The most important thing is the team’s performance on the day, irrespective of where we play.”

Should South Africa beat Senegal, they will come up against Nigeria in the semis.