The draw for the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup took place and Banyana Banyana landed in quite an intimidating group.
On Saturday, 22 October 2022 at the Aotea Centre in Auckland, Banyana were drawn to play against Argentina, Italy and Sweden.
Desiree Ellis’ side is ranked 54th in the world, compared to Sweden in 2nd, Italy 15th and Argentina 29th and will have to dig deep in order to progress to the next round.
Former players and coaches weighed in on the results of the draw.
UJ Women coach and former player Nthabeleng “Dunga” Modio said: “It’s a very tough group, any group that Banyana could’ve been placed in would’ve not been easy. All the champions are in each and every group, it’s just a tough one but I’m excited because we get to play a South American counterpart and two European powerhouses. Italy takes their women’s league and women’s legs so seriously. Sweden without a doubt we’ve met them previously at the Olympics and we lost 4-1 to them, so they too are a very, very big one.
“With Argentina, I think coach Des will be happy to play against a team that most likely plays the same kind of football that we do and we could maybe be better than them. The Brazil match was in a way preparation for them. We actually stand a good chance of getting better than where we were at the previous tournament,” she continued.
“I think that is going to give her a headache because you’ll find a lot of the players looking to take a break after a long season.” – UJ Women coach and former player Nthabeleng “Dunga” Modio speaks on Coach Desiree Ellis’ challenges ahead of the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup
“For now its 8 months but its 8 short months for coach Desiree, with our domestic league coming to an end, I think that is going to give her a headache because you’ll find a lot of the players looking to take a break after a long season but she would most likely want to continue her preparations even over Christmas and early in January. I wish coach Ellis and everyone else good luck.”
Pinky Majekane also a former player stated: “On a positive light, there is a high possibility that we might surprise Italy and Argentina. We have a lot of players in Europe that can add value and experience to this games. However, Sweden will be too powerful for us I don’t think we can match them.”
Majekane is wary of the amount of time Banyana has before the tournament starts.
“This is one of the toughest groups ever. With the performances that we displayed against Brazil and New Zealand, I think we are in trouble. I don’t want to be negative but truth be told I don’t think we have that much time to prepare and match the quality and standard of these nations. I mean Sweden is ranked number 2 in the world, Italy 14 and Argentina 29, this carries a lot of value. And I believe for us to be in that level we need to start from the grassroots,” she added.
“We need to have a long-term plan, a solid development structure that would allow us to identify talent and good coaches that will nature the talent.
“I think it’s going to require a lot of work to really prepare our ladies mentally and physically for this tournament, so that means our football fraternity (SAFA) needs to ensure we secure as many international friendlies as possible and that would determine our progress if we ready or not.”
Former Banyana Banyana captain Simphiwe Dludlu highlighted that how we prepare ahead of the July 2023 showpiece will be key: “The rankings put those teams ahead of us but if we pick our opposition for preparation we should be able to compete. We need enough time together, training at an even higher level to challenge ourselves better than the WAFCON. The friendlies against Brazil and Australia were a good shock for our team to see how far we’ve come since 2019 and how much further we can push in 2023.”
FIFA has expanded the competition from 24 teams to 32 for the first time. This will make it the largest FIFA Women’s World Cup since the tournament began in 1991.
Next year’s tournament will be played between 20 July and 20 August.
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