Desiree Ellis, South Africa football coach: Profile, Career, News & Videos

Desiree Ellis is a South African soccer manager and former player. She currently coaches the South Africa women's national team.

As a player, Ellis played club soccer for 24 years with South African, Irish, and English club teams, primarily playing as a midfielder. Her longest club spell was for Spurs Ladies, with whom she played for 11 total years. Internationally, she represented and was a founding member of the South Africa women's national team, which officially formed in 1993 following SAFA's admission to FIFA in 1992. At 30 years old, she debuted for South Africa as vice captain of the team's first-ever official match, a 13-0 win against Eswatini (formerly Swaziland). Ellis continued to play soccer for the next 9 years, retiring in 2002 at the age of 39.

As coach of the South Africa women's national team since 2016, she coached Banyana Banyana to a runners-up finish at the 2018 Women's Africa Cup of Nations (WAFCON), qualifying them for their first ever Women's World Cup tournament, the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup. In 2022, she coached the team to their first ever WAFCON title, which also qualified them to their second Women's World Cup tournament. At the 2023 Women's World Cup, the team qualified to the knockout rounds of the tournament for the first time in their history, bowing out in the Round of 16 after facing the Netherlands.

For her accomplishments with Banyana Banyana, she has been given CAF Women's Coach of the Year honors every year from 2018 to 2023, totaling four awards. In April 2023, Ellis was bestowed the National Order of Ikhamanga by the South African Government for her contributions to soccer.