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Acquiring good, quality opposition will be Banyana Banyana's biggest challenge in the team’s build-up to the Olympic Games in August.
With six months to go to the Games in Brazil, securing high-profile friendly matches between next month and July will be top of coach Vera Pauw’s wish list in the programme she has handed to Safa.
“We are this team nobody is curious about and not many want to travel to South Africa or give up their Fifa date to play us,” Pauw told City Press during the team’s training camp this week.
She added: “We need good opponents and can only really plan properly after the [Olympic women’s football tournament] draw in April.
“Ideally, we would like to play high-profile matches at the end of February, since the Cyprus tournament is not happening. Fortunately we have an African Women’s Championship qualifier against Botswana in April [to help with match fitness].”
The Cyprus Cup is an invitational women’s football tournament held annually in that country, but Banyana will not be competing in it.
The coach said the team’s training camp was focused on keeping the Banyana players fit.
“It’s going to be two weeks every month,” said the former Dutch senior national women’s team captain, who turned 53 two weeks ago.
It has been three months since Banyana booked their ticket to Rio and Pauw said the reality of it had now sunk in for the players.
“It is a huge dream and we want to make an impact [at the Olympics].”
As much as Pauw would like to have a full complement of players at her disposal, she conceded that calling up overseas players outside the Fifa international calendar weeks “would be a challenge, but we’ll solve that”.
Her foreign-based players include Jermaine Seoposenwe, Robyn Moodaly, Kelso Peskin and Kaylin Swart, who are all pursuing careers in the US.
The squad has been boosted by goalkeeper Roxanne Barker, who left her club in Iceland to fight for a spot in the national team.
The nations that make up the confirmed line-up in the women’s Olympic competition so far are South Africa, Zimbabwe (Africa’s representatives); hosts Brazil, Colombia (South America); France, Germany (Europe); and New Zealand (Oceania).
The remaining five berths will be decided upon the conclusion of qualifying tournaments in North America and Asia in March.
Though most of the Olympic activities will take place in Rio de Janeiro, the football will be played countrywide.
Safa director of women’s football Fran Hilton-Smith believes Banyana Banyana have developed into a tactically sound unit since Vera Pauw took charge of the team a year and a half ago.
“[Tactics] was a crucial area we had to improve on to be on par with the best in the world. We needed a coach like Vera to prepare the team for the world stage because of her experience as a player and coach,” said Smith.
“Previously the team played one formation, but now they can play three systems in one game.”
Hilton-Smith said the London Olympics had been a “learning curve because it was the first international tournament for the team”.
“This time we have prepared to compete and hopefully advance further.”
She said the current crop of players was founded on a development structure that came through the High Performance Centre (HPC) in Pretoria.
“There is a sense of continuity, as most of the players in this team graduated from the [2010] Fifa Under-17 Women’s World Cup squad and the Under-20s.
“As a technical director, I had to bring former Banyana players into the system. We now have Desiree Ellis [Banyana assistant coach] and Shilene Booysen [video analyst] in the senior team. There are also Sheryl Botes, who heads the HPC, Maud Khumalo and Simphiwe Dludlu. All of them have CAF A-Licences [for coaching].”
