Banyana Banyana forward Hilda Magaia will not be used in the Tri-Nations tournament currently underway between South Africa, Botswana and Zambia.
The Mexico-based star is nursing some niggles and Desiree Ellis, head coach of the Sasol-sponsored Banyana, has confirmed that they are managing her so she can be ready for the upcoming TotalEnergies CAF Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (WAFCON) in July in Morocco.
Known to football lovers as “The Breadwinner,” Magaia has been the go-to person for the Banyana in recent times. Sitting on 40 appearances and 21 goals for country, she will best be remembered for the brace against Morocco in the final of the WAFCON in 2022. South Africa won the game 2-1 and lifted their maiden continental title.
“She has a couple of niggles, we’re trying to manage that to make sure that she’s ready for WAFCON, didn’t make sense just to play her, therefore it is it was important to you know just to rest her rather, and make sure that we can manage that and get ready for WAFCON,” said Ellis.
The four-time Africa Woman Coach of the Year was speaking at the Lucas Moripe Stadium in Atteridgeville on Wednesday (28 May 2025) – this was after Banyana defeated a stubborn Botswana 3-2 in the first match of the Tri-Nations, a tournament used to fine-tune the readiness of the countries for the continental competition, the WAFCON.
The hosts broke the deadlock in the 13th minute when 18-year-old Adrielle Mibe registered her debut goal for first goal for Banyana. The celebrations had hardly died down when Jermaine Seoposenwe extended the lead in the 16th minute before sealing her brace 20 minutes later.
But South Africa put their foot off the pedal with Botswana coming back strongly to pull one back four minutes from the half time break through Lesego Radiokanyo. Laone Moloi brought some panic into the African Champions’ camp when she further reduced the deficit to make it 3-2 in the 63rd minute. But it was too little too late for the Botswana Mares to restore parity.
The game saw the return of Banyana captain Refiloe Jane after a 13-month absence from the national team due to injury. Also making their comeback were defenders Bambanani Mbane and Karabo Dhlamini after an injury lay-off while midfielder Regina Mogolola donned the national team jersey for the first time in seven years.
Dhlamini was named the Player of the Match.
There are two more games coming up, with Botswana facing Zambia on Saturday (31 May 2025) while Banyana will go toe to toe with the Copper Queens (Zambia) on Tuesday (3 June 2025).
Both games are at the Lucas Moripe Stadium and will kick off at 3pm.
This is what Ellis had to say about the clash against Botswana.
Your impressions of the game:
I thought we started really well, our movement off the ball, being patient in our build-up. We scored really good team goals, our movement in the second half wasn’t as much as it was in the first half, and our passing was laboured – we needed to up the tempo, we needed to control the tempo but that also comes with making a couple of changes. We wanted these games to see what we needed to work on and there’s definitely some things we need to work on.
It must have been good to have your captain back.
One of the big positives for us was seeing the return of captain Refiloe Jane, Bambanani Mbane and Karabo Dhlamini, all playing well, not forgetting Regina Mogolola who is back after a very long time and also played well.
But more so Refiloe after being out such a long time. But I thought in the second half she ran out of legs – in the first half very involved controlled the play as well. I thought Karabo played very well, she’s played at Centre back before, so we were trying out a couple of things out. And Bambanani, you wouldn’t say she has been gone – so those are all a plus for us.
Conceded two goals, very worrying?
Especially the first one when we knew what was coming, I thought we were in a straight line and there was no cover. The second one, likewise, we said be patient enough to hold up. If you can’t go forward then go sideways or backwards to start the game, but playing into traffic and then being out of position by playing that one ball is not good enough, we have to be better at that because where we are going the level will be even higher, so we will have a look at that and see how we can rectify that going forward.
Have some new faces from the Malawi friendlies:
We are always looking at making the core group bigger. Bonolo has been scoring a lot of good goals and giving her an opportunity was big. Shakira played against Jamaica, and we wanted to see what Shakira could offer us. We want to make sure that we give as many players an opportunity – if you go back to last year starting with Senegal we had a new group, went to Denmark had a local group, then brought in some international players for England, then went to Jamaica and had a new group again, Lesotho had a new group, Malawi also had a new group which is a couple of changes (today vs Botswana) from that. So, we have a rough idea where we are, now we can sit down and say who goes where, who can help us, so this is the opportunity for all of that.
We saw Hilda sitting in the stands… any update?
She has a couple of niggles, we’re trying to manage that to make sure that she’s ready for WAFCON, didn’t make sense just to play her, therefore it was important to just to rest her rather, and make sure that we can manage that and get her ready for WAFCON
Next up is Zambia:
It’s a different game altogether we know they have a lot more quality and bring a different type of dynamic to us – no disrespect to Botswana. Defensively we’ve got to be better because if they get an opportunity, we’ve seen their frontline, they will punish you and then when we get opportunities we have to put them away. It’s going to be a game that’s going to test us in every aspect, the physicality, the pace that they have, the counter attacking that they have, and we need to be better.
By Matlhomola Morake
