12 October 2026 – The SAFA Girls Academy are back from a successful tour of Europe which was aimed at giving the players a glimpse of what was out there.
The squad left on 30 September after being based in Portugal for the duration of the training camp.
The SAFA Girls Academy managed to create memories by making new friends with their European peers and also strengthened team environment while also experiencing Portugal.
Head of Women’s Football at the South African Football Association (SAFA), Dawn Lubisi explains the nine-day European tour.
“Through this exchange, we really just wanted our girls to see what is out there. We wanted them to realize that the world is their oyster. The Academy is there to provide an environment for them to solely upskill themselves and be the best version of themselves all around,” said Lubisi.
“We are hoping that through this trip, they will have something ignited in them. This was an opportunity for them to compare themselves on a world standard to their peers, to see what work still needs to be done. And also, just to acknowledge the progress that they have made so far.”
The tour formed part of the Academy’s commitment to developing young female footballers and preparing them for future opportunities at club and national team level.
“The purpose of the trip was meant to expose the girls and just to prepare them because some of them when they get to the national teams, they struggle a lot in terms of playing and travelling, so this was a great experience for them, and also for them to understand the levels of football in other countries. It was an amazing experience for the girls,” said Head of SAFA Girls Academy, Maude Khumalo.
“There were lessons learnt on the trip, among others we engaged with the coaches on methodology, we brought in someone to engage with the players, to help them understand the professionalism side of things and also how to balance school and football. The players learnt a lot, and so did we as we had an engagement session with the goalkeeper coach from Porto Academy, as well strikers’ coach, defenders’ coach and midfielders’ coach, just to see how they do things.”
Based in Pretoria at the High-Performance Centre, the SAFA Girls Academy returned home in high spirits after posting exciting and positive results.
Their programme included matches against FC Porto, SC Braga, FC Famalicão as well as SC Rio Tinto Senior.
The 22 players of the SAFA Girls Academy were accompanied by eight officials.
The opening game of the tour saw them play to a goalless draw against the FC Porto U17 Women’s team, but won the next two fixtures, beating SC Braga U17 and FC Famalicão U18 sides 3-0 and 3-1 respectively.
Leonay Kock managed a brace in the first victory, ably assisted by Pulane Moloi, while the latter scored two in the third and last match of the tour to bring her tally to three in total. Nothando Kutwana also struck in the 3-1 win.
In the final encounter they played to a 1-1 draw against SC Rio Tinto Senior before making their way back home.
Also, on the field it was a worthy exercise as we played four games and we didn’t lose any. It was quite interesting and they were quite impressed with our performance, hopefully we’ll get more of these exercises going forward then it will help the girls a lot on how to conduct themselves in a proper manner, and to see that football can take them places, and can create opportunities for them at an early age. It was also exciting to see at the age of 13 some of them traveling to Europe for the first time and they managed themselves well, they were not scared or overwhelmed but they really enjoyed themselves. It was a really productive exercise,” added Khumalo.
“This exercise was very important for the Academy because we cannot wait for the girls to play in the junior national teams, so this was just to prepare them for future national team call-ups. Also, it was more for us to put our girls out there to be scouted and as we speak now, they’re interested in six girls in the Academy. We are also looking to see if they have six month or one-year programmes so they can expose our girls to international level at an early age and help us close the gaps in the national teams all the way to Banyana Banyana. So, we are building a perfect pathway at an early age.”
SAFA Girls Academy European Tour Results:
FC Porto U17 vs SAFA Girls Academy
0 – 0
SC Braga U17 vs SAFA Girls Academy
0 – 3
Famalicão U18 vs SAFA Girls Academy
1 – 3
SC Rio Tinto Senior vs SAFA Girls Academy
1 – 1
South African Football: Bafana Bafana has a women’s counterpart known as Banyana Banyana.
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