Banyana Banyana booked their place in the third round of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic qualifiers after completing a 7-0 aggregate victory over Madagascar, following a 3-0 win in the second leg at the Free State Stadium in Bloemfontein on Tuesday night.
The results also offered Ellis an opportunity to assess her squad ahead of the crucial World Cup play-offs, with Banyana Banyana scoring seven goals across the two encounters without conceding.
“Winning gives you that confidence, keeping a clean sheet has the same effect as well, so these two wins were real morale boosters for us going into some very important games to give us that momentum,” said the Banyana coach.
“We know that we scored goals and we haven’t conceded, so it was a good exercise for us ahead of the FIFA World Cup Play-offs which are around the corner.”
The South Africans made six changes to their starting line-up for the second leg, with Thembi Kgatlana captaining the team as Ellis rotated her squad.
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Gabriela Moodaly-Salgado opened the scoring shortly after half-time before substitute Ronnel Donnelly struck twice to complete the victory. Donnelly finished the two-legged tie with five goals after scoring a hat-trick in the first leg.
Despite the convincing result, Ellis believes her team could have been more clinical in front of goal, having created several opportunities during the encounter.
“We made six changes, we are happy with the results and on to the next round, but still of work to be done. We created chances but didn’t take them because we were not patient enough to get the goals,” she added.
“And when the first one went in more were bound to follow and that’s what happened. We could have scored more as the opportunities were there.”
Banyana will now turn their attention to the FIFA Women’s World Cup play-offs, where they have been drawn against Chinese Taipei, Ecuador and Uzbekistan.
Ellis will also oversee preparations for the next round of Olympic qualifying, with Banyana set to face Angola in February or March next year. Angola advanced after defeating Namibia 2-0 in the second leg following a goalless first encounter.