Thembi Kgatlana is happy to be back among the goal scorers for Banyana Banyana after helping the team beat Costa Rica in an international friendly on Saturday morning.
Banyana were fine-tuning their preparations for the upcoming Fia Women’s World Cup for the last time against the Costa Ricans as they won 2-0 – thanks to goals from Thembi Kgatlana and Hildah Magaia.
This was an invaluable win for the South Africans in Christchurch, before the start of their group stage campaign against Group G and tournament's favourites Sweden on July 23 in Wellington.
It was also a result that put the teams’ bid to progress to the knockout stage for the very first time back on track, after their stand-off with Safa before their departure seemed to have put a spanner in the works.
While the team was thrilled with the win and clean sheet, Kgatlana was even happier. This comes after the fact that this was her first game for Banyana since she suffered a serious injury during Wafcon last year.
Having seen the hard work that she’s been putting in at her US-based club Racing Louisville pay dividends with the national team, Kgatlana wants to get back to her best.
“It was amazing to score after coming back after more than a year. It was also amazing to play for more than 70 minutes,” Kgatlana told the Safa media after the game.
“As a striker you want to score and that’s something that I have been practising at my club Racing. And it was amazing to see how (well) I connected with my teammates after coming back from my injury.”
And with less than a week before they meet the third-ranked Swedes in Wellington, Kgatlana said there is still plenty room for improvement if they are to be competitive against their powerful opponents.
“We needed this game because we are going into the World Cup in less than a week. This match also gave us a boost because we have other things that we still need to tweak,” she said.
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