South African Jermaine Seoposenwe has been named as the Woman of the Match after her sole goal secured a FIFA Women’s World Cup slot for Banyana Banyana.
The fast-paced SC Braga forward found the back of the net in the 14th minute after beating the Tunisian defence to slot home in fine fashion to give Desiree Ellis’ side an early lead and eventually the result they needed.
She told CAF Online exclusively that, “I dedicate this award to Thembi Kgatlana, who is my roommate and friend. She is unable to play with us now due to injury and now my teammates and I must step up for her.”
“Today’s victory was about hard work from my team and glory to God for bringing us to this point. We just wanted to win and secure our place to the World Cup and now we want to win this Cup. I am very happy that I was able to positively contribute to the victory of our team,” she added.
Banyana Banyana had their fans on the edge of their seats for the most part of the last quarter of the game with a handful of missed scoring opportunities as Tunisia continued asking the right questions as well.
“We could have scored a couple more goals. We shall look at our mistakes. As a team, we just need to weather the storm, but the most important thing is that we did not concede and when you do that, you give yourself a chance to win. Now, we focus on the next one.”
Seoposenwe, who also scored South Africa’s first goal against Nigeria before Hilda Magala netted the second, is improving and stepping up when her team needs her.
“We live under pressure. We die under pressure. I am very sad that Thembi is not here. She is one of my really really really good friends and it was really heartbreaking to lose her,” said a very sad Seoposenwe.
“We have a big squad. We have players that can play in every position, who are super mobile, so now we need to go back and work on our finishing. We could have buried the game. There is always going to be pressure but it is the semifinals now and we want to go to the final.”
South Africa have now qualified for their second straight World Cup having featured at the 2019 edition in France under the same coach.