Did you know there’s a World Cup happening?

No, not the one over in England, where the Proteas are wilting and South Africans are trying to figure out where AB de Villiers gets his nerve.

Later tonight, hosts France will play South Korea in the opening game of the Women’s Football World Cup. Then, tomorrow at 6PM, Banyana Banyana will make history when they play their first ever World Cup match, taking on Spain.

Leading our women will be skipper Janine van Wyk, who has spent 14 years playing for the national team.

In the build-up to the tournament, BBC Sport has done a profile of our skipper, and it’s a pretty cool story that starts with her search for a football team in the early 1990s:

In addition to being a girl wanting to play what was very much a man’s game in South Africa at the time, the young Van Wyk was also breaking a mould of Afrikaners being associated with rugby.

Her search for a girls’ team took her to the unfamiliar surroundings of Spring Home Sweepers, a team based in Kwathema township also east of Johannesburg.

“It was a struggle to go into the township and train and play but again, after some time the people made me feel really welcome,” she added.

“I used to draw a crowd to the Kwathema Stadium just because the people wanted to see this white girl playing football.

That’s a story she recounts in the video feature that runs with the story. It also comes with the weird added bonus of subtitles in ‘pidgin English’.

Don’t say we never teach you new things:

Van Wyk has already captained Banyana Banyana at the Olympics back in 2016, and she says that the women’s game in this country is only going from strength to strength:

“Three years ago we had less than 200,000 women playing the game – we now have 456,000 women footballers, so there’s an explosion of women coming to play the game.

“The performance of Banyana is going to accelerate the growth. We’re hoping to have a million women footballers and our players are among the most skilful in the world.”

Naturally, the article also touches on the failures of Bafana Bafana,  but van Wyk isn’t keen on that comparison:

 “Now that Banyana is stepping up and qualifying for big tournaments like the World Cup and Olympic Games people start comparing the two and I think it’s really unfair because I feel that Bafana have a tough task to qualify for the Africa Cup of Nations.

“They are currently in a building phase and we need to respect that.”

Sure has been a long building phase, but we’re here to celebrate Banyana Banyana so let’s get back to business.

Here’s Gwendoline, who is a very proud grandmother:

Banyana Banyana qualified after a 2-0 win over Mali in the semi-final of the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations in December. During a recent appearance on The Dan Nicholl Show, she recounted that moment:

Gotta love the passion.

Banyana Banyana have a very tough group, with their fixture below:

Even if they fail to advance from that group, the women who are making history at our first World Cup should be very proud of themselves.

Do your thing and give them hell!

[source:bbc]