South Africa are still determined to achieve their target of World Cup qualification, albeit via a trickier route, after falling 2-1 to Morocco in their Women's Africa Cup of Nations quarterfinal in Rabat on Saturday.
Goals either side of half time from Sakina Diki Ouzraoui and Hanane Aït El Haj gave the hosts a commanding lead at the Moulay El Hassan Stadium, and while Thembi Kgatlana halved the deficit for Banyana Banyana in the 67th minute, Morocco held on to advance.
Victory for the Atlas Lionesses mean they confirm their place at next year's FIFA Women's World Cup, while South Africa must face a 'play-in' match against Nigeria on Thursday in order to stay alive in the inter-confederation play-offs set to take place later this year.
"The goal is still the same," Karabo Dhlamini told ESPN. "We'll try our best to win the play-offs, because we still have a chance to qualify for the World Cup.
"Coming into the game, the team did very well, but that first goal just broke our momentum.
"We're not feeling happy, we're disappointed, but it's not the end of the world. We're going to lift our heads up and focus on the next goal.
"The focus is to score more goals and win the game."
South Africa struggled to reach top gear in the group stage, falling to Tanzania in their opener before salvaging a draw against the Ivory Coast then beating Burkina Faso to advance.
Nonetheless, they demonstrated their enduring qualities against the tournament hosts, enjoying the better of the early exchanges and taking more shots than their rivals.
They could have even nabbed an equaliser later on, only for Khadija Er-Rmichi to produce a fine save to keep Robyn Moodaly-Salgado's effort from creeping over the line.
"Going into the next game, it's very important for us to lift our heads up," Bambanani Mbane told ESPN. "It's not over yet. We must do our best, and we will do our best.
"I'm disappointed, but I'm happy for Morocco. It's part of the game. We did well, we did our best, but unfortunately, things weren't on our side."
Many of this Banyana squad are part of the generation of pioneers who qualified for the team's first ever World Cup in 2019, and then reached the Last 16 four years later, where they were eventually defeated by the Netherlands in Sydney.
Despite the setback -- and the far more circuitous route that awaits them to reach the global showpiece -- Bongeka Gamede, a veteran of both of those World Cup campaigns, told ESPN she's confident the team won't let the disappointment of the end of their title aspirations expiring dent their focus on their World Cup objective.
"It's definitely not over," she began. "We still have another opportunity to play next week, and this should be the motivation, we don't want to feel like this when we play again for the qualifiers.
"This is motivation for us to go into this game fully focused and still believing that the dream is still there.
"We can still do this, we can still make it."
South Africa will now play the Super Falcons, who lost to Cameroon, at Casablanca's Moulay Rachid Stadium on Thursday, with the winner advancing to the inter-confederation playoffs with nine other teams.
The mini tournament - which will take place in November and December - will see three sides take the final trio of tickets for the quadrennial competition.
"We're not out of it," head coach Desiree Ellis concluded. "We didn't want to go down that route, but it's been thrown at us.
"We need to get ready for the next game mentally, get ready for it physically, we need to recover quickly."