Denmark, England friendlies will be beneficial for the team – Ellis

Banyana Banyana mentor Desiree Ellis narrated why she thinks their friendlies against Denmark and England will be beneficial for them.

Ranked 50th by Fifa, Banyana take on Denmark, who are 38 places ahead of them in global rankings, at Aalborg Portland Park this evening (6pm). Banyana, African champions, will then travel from Denmark to England to trade blows with European champions, The Lionesses, at the Coventry Building Society Arena on Tuesday (9.45pm).

“The Scandinavian teams are always very physical. I've watched three or four games of Denmark, they're very quick in moving the ball around and that's what we want to be tested [on] because we're going to a competition where we are going to play physical teams, but we are also going to play teams that can play,'' Ellis said.

“So they [Denmark] will test us in two different aspects. England are European champions and World Cup runners-up. It will be a different game and if you know [their] Dutch coach [Sarina Wiegman], they'd want to play and that will be great for us because we also want to play, but we have to get our defensive shape organised.”

Ellis wants to see her charges being clinical during these two high-profile friendlies, feeling their poor finish has been their major undoing. England are ranked second in Fifa rankings.

“We are always a team that create chances and if we can sort out our finishing, we will win more games than what we're winning at the moment. We can't afford to squander chances against these top teams if we want the results,'' the Banyana coach said.

Banyana aim to use this European tour to prepare for next year's Wafcon in Morocco, where they will be eager to avoid being the first nation to fail to defend the title having won it in the same country in 2022. 

The upcoming edition of Wafcon was supposed to be played this year, but was postponed because the schedule clashed with the Olympics, hosted from July 26 to August 11. 

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