Blackburn Rovers midfielder Nokuthula can really add value to South Africa says Ellis

South Africa head coach Desiree Ellis says that Blackburn Rovers midfielder Faith Nokuthula can add some real value to her team.

The 20-year-old was called into the Banyana Banyana squad earlier this week. She will train with the team but will not be available for selection when South Africa take on Australia at Kingsmeadow tomorrow due to registration complexities.

When speaking to FAWSL Full-Time in the pre-match press conference, South Africa boss Ellis said that she has been watching Nokuthula for a long period of time and that the player could add some real value to her squad in the future.

“What many people don’t know is that I have been monitoring Faith since 2018,” Ellis said. “We get reports and get to watch games – at the time, she was still a youth player, playing in the youth team at Brighton but now she has moved to Blackburn.

“We have got to watch her a couple of times and coming to England, it was the perfect opportunity to look at her with her being based in the country.

“Unfortunately, she is not available for selection because her documents are not sorted yet but we are able to have a look at her. She is really good on the ball and doesn’t give the ball away often from what we have seen in the training sessions. There is something there with her being a young player and I think that she can really add value to the team going forward.”

Ellis went on to say that she has been impressed with Nokuthula’s versatility and she sees that as something which could also benefit the national team.

She said “We were really impressed with her as a youth player and kept watching and following her. When she joined Blackburn, we saw a little bit more of her in different positions, as right full-back, as a wing-back, and I was very impressed with what she added to the game.

“I thought that she could really add value to how we play, moving the ball around on the ground. With Faith being so good on the ball technically and tactically as well, I thought that would really help our game going forward.”

South Africa’s international friendly against Australia at Kingsmeadow kicks-off at 12.30pm on Saturday afternoon.