The two teams will face each other in Group K during the final round of 2025 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers, and it will be the first game in the Mother City in nine years.

The Bafana captain and goalkeeper, Williams, made his senior national debut ten years ago in the 5-0 drubbing against Brazil at Soccer City.

Williams said that the match in which Neymar scored a hat-trick sticks with him as a player and he believes that even though they lost, it moulded him into the player he is today.

“The most important game for me was the first game, which was against Brazil,” said Williams.

“Even though we lost 5-0, I still have so many memories and that game taught me so much. It’s probably the reason why I am where I am today because I had to persevere.

“I was called many names and it made me stronger at such a young age, you know, I think I was 22 years old, and there were so many doubts for many, many, years.”

Ronwen Williams. Photo: Morgan Piek

While Williams has played for South Africa for ten years, he has been a part of many teams, most of which were unsuccessful. Over the past few years, South Africa has turned into a force on the continent again, and he puts this down to their failure to qualify for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar.

“Even the last World Cup campaign qualifiers that we had, we were a few minutes away from qualifying, and we all know what happened when we played Ghana,” Williams added.

‘We went undefeated until the last game’

“We had such a perfect qualifying campaign, and I think we went undefeated until the last game, you know, we scored, we didn’t concede many and that’s when I think the turnaround started for Bafana Bafana.”

Tuesday night’s big game between South Africa and South Sudan at the Cape Town Stadium kicks off at 18:00.

OFM Sport/Morgan Piek cg