ALTHOUGH Bafana Bafana’s journey to the World Cup ended in the Last 32, but the captain, Ronwen Williams, sees the knowledge they gained from this tournament will help the team in the years to come.
The local team, which was the first to reach the knockout stages of the World Cup, was eliminated by Canada 1-0 on Sunday night.
Williams said that although it is sad that they failed to progress in this competition, it is encouraging that most of the players in Hugo Broos’ team are 25 years old or younger.
They include defenders Mbekezeli Mbokazi (20) and Ime Okon (22), goalkeepers Relebohile Mofokeng (21), Thapelo Maseko (22), Oswin Appollis (24) and others.
Williams, who is one of the players over the age of 30 in the national team, sees a bright future.
Since Broos took over in 2021, Bafana have played three major tournaments in a row, namely the 2024 Africa Cup of Nations where they finished in third place, the 2025 where they came out of the Last 16, and the 2026 World Cup.
“There are many young players in the national team. I feel happy when I think about its future. Since there are young players who have played at this level, they are studying, gathering knowledge, all this will help the team and themselves,” said Williams.
“Right now we have to analyze what happened, unite as a team and the country as a whole so that we can build on what we have done. It shouldn’t take us too long to get back to the World Cup.”
“We need to find a way to continue with the core of the team we already have and it will happen because most of the players have experience playing in major competitions such as the Afcon, the FIFA Club World Cup and the World Cup.”
Regarding what happened in the tournament where they came from the United States, Mexico and Canada, Williams said they showed that they deserve to play with the best countries in the world but also taught them things they need to fix.
“We need to be more confident. We have shown that we can compete with these countries, but we must stick to what we know,” he continued.
“The most important thing is that it is important to use the opportunities you get. When I look at the opportunities we got and the fact that we only scored two goals, it tells me that we have to do much better because at this level you don’t get many opportunities.”
Bafana will meet again in September when they start the Afcon qualifiers which will be held in Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya next year.
In the qualifiers they were drawn with Kenya, Guinea and Eritrea in Group D.