Banyana lost 2-1 to Morocco in the quarterfinals at Moulay El Hassan Stadium in Rabat on Saturday<\/a>, missing out on the automatic qualification of next year\u2019s World Cup in Brazil.<\/p>\nSA will now face fellow quarterfinal losers and defending champions Nigeria, who are their old rivals, for one of CAF\u2019s two intercontinental playoffs spots at Casablanca\u2019s Moulay Rachid Stadium on Thursday (10pm SA time).<\/p>\n
Nigeria, who are also the record 10-time title-holders, were stunned by Cameroon in the semifinals to set-up a date with Banyana that\u2019s certain to ignite their rivalry. The winner of this match will play two rounds of play-off against yet-to-be-confirmed opponents from other continents for a slot at the next World Cup in Brazil next year.<\/p>\n
\u201cDefinitely it\u2019s not over…we have another opportunity and that should be the motivation. We must remain fully focused and believe that the dream is still there,\u201d Gamede insisted.<\/p>\n
From the start, Banyana were a shadow of their old self at this ongoing Wafcon, losing their Group B opener 2-1 to minnows Tanzania, before they drew their second fixture 2-2 versus Ivory Coast. Ultimately they beat Burkina Faso 1-0 in their last group stage match to sneak into the quarterfinals, where Morocco punished them.<\/p>\n
Gamede has insisted that nothing went wrong for Banyana at this tournament, saying it\u2019s the nature of the game to lose some matches. The Banyana defender, who plies her trade with Danish A-Liga club FC Nordsj\u00e6lland, also refused to blame defence for conceding six goals at this Wafcon.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think I can say there\u2019s something wrong. Everyone who knows football knows that football is like this, you can\u2019t always be at the top,\u201d Gamede said.<\/p>\n
\u201cConceding starts from how you press, so we can\u2019t really say as defenders we are to blame because we play as a team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ndebele is in Morocco courtesy of Banyana sponsor Sasol<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Casablanca \u2014 Banyana Banyana utility defender Bongeka Gamede believes they can still qualify for next year\u2019s World Cup…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":371839,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[45],"tags":[33998,177800,4168,1742,165,122,724,2511,6463],"class_list":["post-371838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nigeria","tag-banyana-banyana","tag-bongeka-gamede","tag-brazil","tag-casablanca","tag-morocco","tag-nigeria","tag-rabat","tag-wafcon","tag-world-cup"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@africa\/117071865580321197","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=371838"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371838\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/371839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}