Bafana Bafana are through to the semi-finals of the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) for the first time since 2000, thanks to the incredible goalkeeping of captain Ronwen Williams. After a 120-minute goalless draw against Cape Verde, he saved four out of five penalties, setting a new record for the number of saves by a goalkeeper in a knockout penalty shootout at AFCON.
South Africa is now set up for a titanic semi-final against Nigeria, to be played on Wednesday evening in Bouaké, Côte d’Ivoire.
As massive as Williams’s performance was in the penalty shootout, his moment of the match arguably came in the dying moments of regular time when he pushed a vicious, close-range shot from Cape Verde striker Gilson Tavares onto the bar.
“There weren’t too many clear-cut chances and that was one where that got in behind the defence and there was only a few minutes to go,” Williams said to the media after the game.
“So for me that save stands out more than anything else. I’m just proud I could keep my team in the game because they don’t give me so much work to do.”
Williams, who was awarded man of the match, went on to praise his teammates and the analysts who had helped him prepare for the shootout.
Writing for The Athletic, the former Bafana Bafana captain Lucas Radebe praised the coach Hugo Broos for relying mostly on a crop of players who play in South Africa. He said: “If you look through it, you will see that so many of the players in it play for South African clubs — Mamelodi Sundowns in particular. Eight of the line-up on Tuesday were players from the Sundowns. The coach, Hugo Broos, was criticised for this a lot. The public asked why he was using so many players from the South Africa leagues, rather than somewhere like Europe. You see now that so many of the players involved in AFCON are with European clubs.”
“But for me, I understood what he was trying to do, what the bigger plan was. It was a reason why I felt quite hopeful at this tournament — because so many of the squad know each other from their club,” wrote Radebe.
Bafana Bafana have not won an AFCON in 28 years, since their first and only continental title victory in 1996. The whole of South Africa will be behind our boys as they take on Nigeria.
