South Africa captain Ronwen Williams has called on his team to not give up on its ambitions to qualify beyond the group stage at the 2026 FIFA World Cup despite losing its opening game of the tournament.
The Bafana Bafana lost 2-0 to Mexico with Julian Quinones and Raul Jimenez scoring for Mexico; Quinones’ goal came off a mistake from South Africa while attempting to pass from the back.
Speaking after the game, Williams who doubles as the team’s captain, reflected on the mistake in the ninth minute that disrupted South Africa’s game plan.
“We obviously didn’t want to concede in the first 20 minutes, but that’s exactly what happened.We wanted to settle the nerves and anxiety but if you make a mistake at this level they will punish you.”
“There are a lot of lessons we can take from this, we need to analyse our mistakes and not give up because there’s still two games to play. We had a good game plan but we made that mistake in the first half and that allowed them to get on the front foot” Williams said.
South Africa take on Czechia and South Korea next on June 21 and 25 respectively.
