A MAJOR concern for Banyana Banyana heading into the African Women's Championship (AWC) this weekend is not the type of football they want to play, but rather the surfaces they will be playing on.

Banyana will play all their games in the group stages on grass at the Independence Stadium in Windhoek, Namibia. Should they qualify for the next phase, their knockout games will be played on an artificial pitch at Sam Nujoma Stadium.

This obstacle does not exist for teams in the other group in the competition and Banyana captain Janine van Wyk feels it will give their rivals an advantage.

"It's going to be a challenge because we have to deal with playing on astro-turf and grass," Van Wyk said.

"In Group A, they only play on astro throughout the group phase - the semifinal and final are on astro too, whereas in Group B we have to play on grass during the group phase and then on artificial in the knockouts."

Van Wyk refused to look atthe situation as an excuse but rather more of a challenge that the team had already started preparing for.

"We've been training on astro and we are trying to get a bit of a feel for it. It's going to be difficult to win [the AWC] under the circumstances we've been put in, but we are focused on heading to the World Cup [in Canada]," she said.

Banyana arrived in Namibia on Monday and have had two days to train and acclimatise ahead of their opening game against Cameroon on Sunday. A place at next year's World Cup is theirs if they can finish in the top three at the AWC.