Banyana Banyana coach Desiree Ellis says selecting a 23-woman squad for the upcoming Fifa Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand is going to be the most difficult experience of her coaching career. 

The African champions are currently in a selection camp with 36 players along with Ellis’s backroom staff. With the World Cup in a month’s time, the team received a send-off from Brand SA yesterday while taking a pledge to represent the country in a good manner. 

Ellis in the coming days will have the unenviable task of picking 23 players that will represent the nation at the global showpiece starting next month. 

“It’s the most difficult selection I have had to make; just selecting 36 from thousands out there has been difficult, there are many good players out there. I can, unfortunately, select the 36 and now 23,” Ellis told the media. 

“I want to give myself until the last [moment] to make sure I make the right decisions because we are going to a different competition and I have to make sure to replicate what we did at Wafcon [Women Africa Cup of Nations], that we choose a squad for every eventuality, to make sure we have enough cover, to make sure with the different ways we want to play we have the right personnel,” she said.

The esteemed coach has already made some big calls leading up to the training camp where she omitted veteran Janine van Wyk, in the process ending her World Cup dreams. Ellis will end the World Cup dream of 13 players and that’s something weighing heavily on her. 

“It’s going to be difficult, and emotional, not just for me but for the players as well,” Ellis said. “There’s that young girl that dreams of going to the World Cup and that individual might not be there. We have got a psychologist in camp as well to make sure [they're fine]. No matter what I say and how I say it, I am putting someone’s dream on pause, that will be the most difficult thing but unfortunately, it has to be done,” she said.