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By Tshepo Ntsoelengoe

Football Journalist


Ellis looking forward to the year after winning Caf award  

Desiree Ellis hopes that winning the Caf Female Coach-of-the-Year award is a start of great things for Banyana Banyana ahead of their busy schedule this year.


The Banyana coach won back to back African female coach-of-the-year-award at the ceremony held in Egypt last Tuesday, retaining the title she won last year.

Ellis says winning the award is an inspiration for her and is looking forward to taking Banyana to greater heights by working collectively with her team.

“Getting an award always inspires you and always motivates you, but I love what I do.  As coaches we need to improve and get better every year, with the help of Safa and Sasol there is already a plan put in place with a lot of Fifa dates coming up. Nothing has been confirmed yet, but we also have the qualifiers as well as the Cosafa Cup and obviously the Afcon at the end of the year.

“The year has started well by winning this award and hopefully it can end off well at the Afcon. So, we are really looking forward to this year. It’s part of a new cycle, preparation for not only Afcon 2020 but Afcon 2022 to qualify for the World Cup 2023. And all of that starts now, there is a whole lot of hard work ahead and hopefully, collectively we can work well together and make things fantastic for Banyana again.”

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