A national women’s soccer league needs to be put in place if Banyana Banyana are to compete for honours in major tournaments like the Africa Women’s Cup of Nations and the Olympic Games.
This is the view of Banyana skipper Janine van Wyk who admitted to being disappointed after Banyana failed to progress to the knockout rounds at the Rio Olympic Games and also finishing fourth, for the second time in a row, in the recent women’s Afcon in Cameroon.
“A national league will see the best women’s teams in the country competing against each other week-in and week-out. We need that. That will help improve our standard of football and hopefully we’ll do better than we’ve been doing when we travel to major tournaments such as the Olympics.
"There have been complaints that the women’s national team are not doing well when it comes to these types of tournaments but there’s a reason for it.
“And that reason is that as senior national players, we don’t get to play competitive football matches against sides who will challenge us (to evolve to the next level),” she added. “It becomes a problem when we have to perform for the country. Take our (Gauteng) Sasol regional league for example, there are only two strong teams there where, after playing against them, you'd feel you’ve worked for that result, and earned it.
“The rest of the teams are just weak. And that needs to change.”
Linda Motlhalo celebrates a goal with her teammates during the Women Africa Cup of Nations match against Egypt at Stad Limbe. Picture: BackpagePix
Meanwhile, the 29-year-old centre-back said she was pleased that her JVW FC side progressed to the semi-finals of the Sasol National League championship taking place in Mossel Bay in the Western Cape, with this being their debut appearance in the tournament.
JVW beat both the University of the Western Cape (UWC 3-2) and Durban Ladies FC (1-0) in their group to progress to the last four of the tournament.
“I’m so ecstatic,” Van Wyk said. “We’ve worked really hard to get here. Our approach for this tournament has been pretty simple. We decided to take it one game at a time and I’m pleased with the two consecutive wins so far.
“When we arrived here (in Mossel Bay), there were certain teams that made it clear they wanted to beat us, simply because we have a few players who are also part of the Banyana set-up.
“We all thought it was nothing but intimidation talk until we played our first game (against UWC).
“That match felt like I was playing in one of our Africa Cup of Nations matches again. It was extremely physical, especially towards the end of the match. I understand that every team want to make the final but some of the tackles in that match were unnecessary.
“We’ll continue to take it one game at a time and see what happens next.
“It would be great if we go all the way and win it.”