“Linda would have been the first, Karabo [Dhlamini] then became the first to step up. She was also one of the walking wounded but the courage and resilience this team has shown, I cannot talk enough about that.”
Banyana battled to break down the big, hard-working Senegalese, though had the better of the game in the second half and extra time without being able to produce enough chances, or bury those they did, to settle the game before the shoot-out.
“I think we had a few chances, I think we could have made better decisions in the final third,” Ellis said.
“We had two really great opportunities where if someone just rolled the ball across [goal] it could have been tapped in. But they had a really good chance at the end where we didn’t pick up and our hearts were in our [throats].
“We knew their gameplan and I thought we dealt well with their long ball. The minute we put the ball on the ground that’s how the opportunity came for the penalty [for a foul on Magaia in extra time, turned down by the match officials and a VAR review], and I’ve had messages from home that it was a penalty.
“But we prevailed. Our last two phrases in our team meeting were, ‘Outplay them and outlast them’, and we outlasted them tonight.”