Banyana Banyana head coach Dr Desiree Ellis says she was confident in goalkeeper Andile Dlamini’s abilities following her penalty heroics in the shootout win over Senegal.
The defending champions were held to a goalless draw by the Senegalese for 120 minutes in their quarterfinal clash before Ellis’s side converted four penalties while Dlamini made two saves to help Banyana secure victory and progression to the semi-finals. They will face nemesis Nigeria for a place in the final in midweek.
Ellis said after the game that the team had confidence in the Mamelodi Sundowns Ladies keeper to make more than one save in the penalties.
“As I said yesterday, we’ve been practicing penalties, and we knew who our kickers were going to be,” said Ellis.
“That’s why we made the changes we made as well. We always knew that Andile can save one or two [penalties]. We always knew, she’s done it before. By the way this is our first penalty shootout win at WAFCON.
“We lost in 2006 we lost in 2018 in the final. So, this is our first win, but I said the game was going to be tough.
“I said the game was going to be hard, but we prevailed in the penalty shootout.”
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