…Our destiny is in our own hands, says the Bafana Bafana Captain
By: Mpho Sekharume
With just a few hours away before Bafana Bafana host Nigeria tonight at 18:00 at the Free Stadium in Bloemfontein, shot stopper Ronwen Williams has boldly deflated any suggestion that the national side will go into the looming battle with any form anxiety, given the stature of the continental clash.
Bafana Bafana are on the cusp of securing qualification to the 2026 FIFA World Cup, should they beat Nigeria in the City of Roses in front of vibrant crowd.
Speaking at press briefing ahead of this titanic clash yesterday, the Bafana skipper said the team is more focused on the objective of securing their ticket to the World Cup, given the fact that they have become quite familiar with tonight’s opponents from their previous encounters.
“It is good for us that we have not lost to them in open play…we went away to them and got a result (in Nigeria), so there is nothing to fear. There is not so much extra motivation, besides the fact that we can obviously qualify tomorrow.
“We need to play the same way we have been playing and have the same mentality and the same team spirit. And I mean we have played Nigeria twice in the last two years, so we are familiar with them, we know them, and we have got the experience as well,” said Williams.
He stressed that the team’s fate is in their own hands and will opt not to rely on other teams and pertinent permutations to qualify for next year’s showpiece.
“We will just go out there and do what we have been doing and obviously get the job done.
“The most important thing is to get the job done. We don’t want any favours from anyone; we want to do things for our way. We learned a hard lesson a few years ago where our destiny was in other teams’ hands and things didn’t go our way.
“We learned and we grew as a team. Now we want to do it our way and get the job done,” he said.
While beating Nigeria will grant Bafana Bafana World Cup qualification, a loss would push them to chase victory away against Zimbabwe next month on 6 October 2025 and possibly against Rwanda a week later 13 October.
True to Williams’ supposition, sweating over Nigeria is not that necessary. Nevertheless, victory over the Super Eagles would be an essential morale booster, that will save them the dreaded effort of pulling out all stops against Zimbabwe and Rwanda.
Said Williams: “There are still nine points to play for…we shouldn’t put too much pressure on ourselves to get it done, but it would mean so much to get it done as early as possible. But we should just treat it like any other game.”
