AFCON 2025: Williams Reveals Key Lessons for Bafana Bafana After Heartbreak

Bafana Bafana captain and goalkeeper Ronwen Williams has admitted that South Africa’s defensive struggles at AFCON are a major concern as the team looks ahead to the 2026 FIFA World Cup in June.

Bafana crashed out of the tournament after a 2-1 defeat to Cameroon in the Round of 16 on Sunday evening, conceding six goals in four matches, a stark contrast to their previous AFCON campaign where they set a record for clean sheets.

“Obviously, we’ve been known to be very solid as a team. We’ve kept a lot of clean sheets over the years. At the previous AFCON, we broke the record. Now you see the amount of goals we conceded in this tournament, obviously it’s a concern.” Williams told SABC Sport

Williams stressed that the team must learn from this setback and tighten up defensively:
“It’s things we have to work on. We know as a team what’s been going on. We have a lot of things to work on and lessons to take.”