South Africa’s route to the 2027 Women’s World Cup has become starkly clear. Beat hosts Morocco in Saturday’s Women’s Africa Cup of Nations quarter-final in Rabat and Banyana Banyana will book their place in Brazil; lose and they will be forced into a far more complicated qualifying route.
Desiree Ellis’s side reached the last eight as Group B runners-up after a hard-fought 1-0 victory over Burkina Faso, while Ivory Coast’s win over Tanzania secured South Africa second place in the group.
Thembi Kgatlana’s early goal proved decisive, although Banyana survived a tense second half and were relieved when a Burkina Faso penalty was overturned following a VAR review.
Ellis admitted afterwards that her team had made the contest harder than it needed to be.
“I said it was going to be a tough one, and we made it a little bit difficult for ourselves,” she said. “We scored early and then stopped playing. It wasn’t pretty, but sometimes it doesn’t have to be pretty. Defensively we were organised and that was important.”
READ: Proud Banyana coach Desiree Ellis: The fightback shows what this team is made of
South Africa’s group campaign was far from convincing. They opened with a 2-1 defeat to Tanzania and needed a stoppage-time equaliser to rescue a 2-2 draw against Ivory Coast.
“It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish,” Ellis said. “The fightback shows what this team is made of.”
The coach believes Banyana have learned that tournament football often demands pragmatism rather than constant flair.
“In 2018 we played some of the best football and didn’t win the tournament,” she said. “In 2022 we mixed it up. We’ve learned that you can’t play pretty all the time.”
Saturday’s meeting with Morocco now offers South Africa both a place in the semi-finals and a direct ticket to the World Cup.