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Banyana focused on Ghana

Johannesburg - The South African women's soccer team will hope to bounce back from their defeat in their opening match at the African Women's Championships in Namibia, when they face Ghana at Independence Stadium on Wednesday.

Banyana Banyana suffered a 1-0 loss to Cameroon in their group-B match on Sunday when they conceded in the dying minutes.

"I am impressed with the team's performance. We dominated three-quarters of the game against Cameroon," Banyana coach Vera Pauw said on Tuesday.

"They created one chance out of a mistake from our build-up. We have analysed the match and we have been working on fixing what we picked up from that match."

Captain Janine van Wyk was confident the team would get a positive result in the match.

"We are not under pressure at all. We have the experience in the team to lift ourselves up," Van Wyk said.

"We know it is do or die for us. It is going to be a tough battle for us as Ghana is going come out guns blazing.

"We just have to keep our focus and we can come out with a positive result."

Banyana have to win the match to keep their World Cup qualification dream alive.

Algeria and Cameroon are the only teams in group B with maximum points, while Banyana and Ghana will have to battle it out on Wednesday night.

Ghana also lost by the same margin to Algeria in their opening match and in the same fashion.

The last time the women's national team played against Ghana was in an international friendly match in South Africa in May where the match ended 1-0 in favour of the visitors.

Banyana have found themselves in a similar situation before, when they lost their opening match at the 2012 African Women's Championships, but went on to win all their other matches and reached the finals.

"We have been in the same situation before. In 2012 we lost our first match against Equatorial Guinea," Van Wyk said.

"We are not dropping our heads because we have lost our first game. We know that we have a chance to qualify.

"We have done it in the past and I don't see why we cannot do it now."

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