Mamelodi Sundowns goalkeeper Ronwen Williams has explained his costly error against Borussia Dortmund in the FIFA Club World Cup.
Masandawana fell to a 4-3 defeat at the hands of the Bundesliga giants, the result that daunted the Tshwane giants’ hopes to qualify for the next stage.
Sundowns initially took the lead through Lucas Ribeiro Costa, but their advantage was short-lived due to a costly mistake by Ronwen Williams. The goalkeeper's error gifted the ball to the opposition, leading directly to a conceded goal.
Williams later explained that the blunder occurred because Teboho Mokoena told Allende to move, causing a miscommunication as the goalkeeper had intended to pass the ball to the latter.
‘IT’S NOT NICE TO CONCEDE A GOAL LIKE THAT’
“It’s not nice to concede a goal like that but we’re a team that takes risks and before I received the ball, I saw Tebza there, but he got a call from Marcelo to move away, so it was just one of those unfortunate situations, but we learn from it and we keep going,” he said.
“There’s not really [a big gap in intensity and physicality], we showed that we can compete, yes they are obviously physically bigger but it’s all about the mind, if your mentality is right, you can go out there and compete with the best, that’s what we showed.
“We had very good chances in the first half, I am just so proud of the boys for the effort, the desire and the fight, the gap is not that big, we proved that once again.”
He continued, “Yes [it’s disappointing], that was the talk for this week, at this level, if you make mistakes they punish you, which we learnt the hard way today – I think all of their goals are mistakes, errors from us, where at this level you get punished,” he said.
“Where we come from, we get away with it [in the PSL], so this is good lessons, we shouldn’t be disappointed, we played our football, showed our identity, so big up to the boys, lot of lessons to learn and to grow from this.”
