Thembi Kgatlana, a striker for South Africa’s women’s national team, says it has been tough to accept not being able to compete in the Olympic Games in Paris.

Nigeria defeated Banyana Banyana 1-0 on aggregate to eliminate South Africa from the 2024 Olympics, which is their second miss.

Kgatlana participated during the 2016 Olympic Games and was hoping Banyana would qualify to the Paris Olympics.

She was looking forward to the Olympics after the team missed out on the last Olympic qualification. 

“That moment still feels like it was yesterday, not being able to qualify for the Olympics. I was in the team that qualified for the Olympics in 2015 through the qualifiers to go to Rio in 2016. Then I was injured in 2019 so I couldn’t come to join Banyana or the qualifiers for the Olympics”

“Everyone wants to play at the biggest stage”-Kgatlana.

“I think for me I was disappointed that we couldn’t qualify now, back-to-back we have missed out on the Olympics,”

The Mexico based striker believes it’s now time to rebuild the team and start to prepare for the World Cup. 

“To rebuild or start talking about rebuilding is a good thing because some of the current players that are with Banyana probably won’t be there when 2027 comes for whatever reason and I think when we talk about rebuilding and starting to make sure that we have a squad that is decent to work upon, it’s going to help us so that we can get ready in preparation for the world cup,” noted the striker. 

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Kgatlana and other key players were not part of the squad that faced Senegal in the back-to-back international friendly matches.