The South African women’s soccer team is preparing for the 2016 Rio Olympics in August, and captain Van Wyk believes that their preparations against teams such as the Netherlands have been ideal.
Banyana Banyana, as the women’s team is affectionately called, play the Dutch in their second friendly in three days on Tuesday night, having narrowly lost 1-0 in the first encounter.
A series of three matches was planned against the Netherlands, and this has provided the team with the ideal preparation according to their skipper, Janine Van Wyk.
“We put up a really good performance. This was the first top team we played in a very long time and it was a good test to see where we are in terms of progress. To concede in the opening minutes was a huge let down for the team because we wanted to showcase what we are made of,” Van Wyk said of the first Dutch friendly, according to SuperSport.
“It took a while for us to get settled but we were able to step up our performance and showed that we can hold our own. We had some good moments in the game, also had scoring chances but we did not capitalise on them,” she said.
“A lot of the players in the team haven’t played at that level so it was a bit hard for them to adapt but in the second half we had the belief. I think we respected them a lot going into the game but we fought back and showed good character,” the captain added.
The free kick specialist has her sights firmly fixed on Rio 2016, and she is aware that the calibre of teams waiting for them at the tournament will be high.
“The good thing is that each game that we play gets us one step closer to the Olympic Games so we have to take each and every second from the match to learn from it, and get more experience going to Rio knowing what the level is of the teams we are going to face,” Van Wyk admitted.
Banyana will begin their Olympic campaign against Sweden on August 3, before matches against China and Brazil on August 6 and 9 respectively.
Drawn in a tough group, the South African women will have to be at their best to compete in Brazil, but if captain Van Wyk is any indication, they are determined to make an impact.
Banyana will play a friendly international match against the world champion USA women’s team on Saturday, 9 July at Soldier Field in Chicago.
The Olympic warm-up match will be the first time that South Africa will play against the number one ranked American team.
