Olympic Games Olympic Games: Ellis calls on fans support as Banyana Banyana face Super Falcons

Banyana Banyana coach Desiree Ellis is urging football supporters to come out in numbers and fill up Loftus Stadium when they host Nigeria in the second leg of their final Olympic qualifier.

Banyana travels to Lagos to play Nigeria on 04 April and will return home for the second leg five days later. With a lot at stake in this game, Ellis knows the importance of a decent crowd to rally behind the team.

“I think it’s important, we had a good crowd at Mbombela but I think the crowd needs to come out. They’re going to need to show their support because we’re going to need that 12th and 13th player, we don’t want the stadium filled with Nigerians with all due respect, we want the South African fans to be that 12th and 13th player,” Ellis said.

“You’ve seen it happen at COSAFA Cup, you’ve seen what it’s done to the team and we urge the fans to come out in their numbers because it’s going to be really, really important.”

There have been concerns about the hosting of national teams’ matches in Gauteng especially in Johannesburg due to poor crowd attendance in both Banyana Bayana and Bafana Bafana matches.

Ellis is hoping that football fans in Pretoria can prove to be different. “We urge fans to come out in their numbers because we play for them, they’re the ones that we play for. We meet people on the streets and everyone says we want to come and watch you, so it’s out there that we’re playing at Loftus, it’s 19:30 on the 9th, we ask you, we say come out there, we want you to celebrate with us, we want to make sure that we do it for you because it’s going to be that important that we have a packed-out stadium,” the coach added.


Dennis Mabuka

Dennis Mabuka is a seasoned Kenyan journalist with 18 years of experience covering sports events. He is currently a sport content creator with en.Africatopsports.com.

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