Interim Banyana Banyana coach Desiree Ellis has selected a 34-man squad for a week-long selection camp ahead of the Cosafa Cup tournament which will take place in September.

The squad assembled for the training camp on Sunday, 23 July and held their first training session the following day. Twelve members of Ellis’ squad comprise of the 20-member University Sport South Africa (USSA) squad that will do duty at the World Student Games, in Taipei from 19 – 30 August 2017.

The former Banyana captain highlighted the purpose of the training camp in addition to revealing why there is only new face in her squad in University of Limpopo’s Sara Molatelo Kobo.

‘We are preparing the team for the 2017 COSAFA Women’s Championship which will take place from 13 – 24 September in Zimbabwe,’ she told safa.net

‘We just want to make sure the players are fit and understand what is expected of them.

‘Prior to them reporting for camp we gave them a training programme, and they seem to have followed it as they looked good on the first day – most have shed some weight. It was a good measure to see where they are and a few players raised their hands.

‘The main idea is to have a core group.

‘Stuart Baxter is trying something similar with Bafana Bafana where he is calling players that have been to the U17 and U20 World Cup tournaments, and other players outside the core group, like Mario Booysen who played in the COSAFA Cup and the CHAN matches.

‘We are trying to do something similar and trying to get everybody on the same level of fitness so that if one player withdraws you can automatically call up another because the player is part of the group and not too far behind in terms of fitness and knowledge of what is needed,’ she concluded.

Photo: Sydney Mahlangu /BackpagePix

– This story originally appeared on SportsClub.co.za