After Mamelodi Sundowns’ match away to Polokwane City this afternoon, their goalkeeper will board a jet and fly through the night to Paris. By Wednesday, he is expected to be back in South Africa, as the Pretoria-based Sundowns have another fixture that evening, at home against Cape Town City.
In the middle of all of this, Ronwen Williams will take his seat at the Theatre du Chatelet near the banks of the River Seine, where the 2024 edition of the Ballon d’Or is being held on Monday night. His presence in the French capital is significant because he is the first African-based player to be nominated for the Yashin Trophy, a global award given to the sport’s best-performing goalkeeper.
Williams, 32, starred at the Africa Cup of Nations in Ivory Coast this year, where he captained his country and saved four penalties in a quarter-final shootout victory over Cape Verde.
Ronwen Williams has become the first goalkeeper to ever save 4 penalties in a single TotalEnergies AFCON shootout. 🤯🇿🇦#TotalEnergiesAFCON2023 pic.twitter.com/35g7qPeB2D
— CAF_Online (@CAF_Online) February 4, 2024
When he found out about his listing last month, he was at home in Johannesburg. Son Mikael, 11, initially thought his father had received bad news because of how shocked he seemed.
“It’s a proud moment for me but also for the continent of Africa,” Williams tells The Athletic. “It’s going to open doors for domestic players and inspire kids to dream bigger, to be part of a wider conversation.”
Last year, Morocco’s Yassine Bounou came third in the Yashin award voting, behind Argentina’s Emiliano Martinez and Ederson of Brazil. Bounou, Canadian-born but raised in Casablanca from the age of three, was playing for Al Hilal of Saudi Arabia by the time he received recognition for his achievements, which were largely based on Morocco’s fourth-place finish at the 2022 World Cup when he was registered with Sevilla in Spain.
Williams stands out because he has never played for a club outside Africa. Though his Wikipedia page mentions a brief spell at Tottenham Hotspur as a teenager, in reality he travelled to London for a youth tournament that involved Manchester United with his former club, Pretoria’s SuperSport United, and was never picked up.
He thinks it has been harder for African footballers to receive recognition because of the sheer size of the continent and the legal challenges that come with moving talent from there into Europe. Yet in Africa, new club money and the growth of domestic competitions, as well as the continent’s own version of the Champions League, has helped raise standards. In the long term, Williams believes all that will lead to improved performances by African sides at international tournaments.
Williams is well placed to talk about the impact of investment, because Sundowns are owned by Patrice Motsepe, the billionaire president of the Confederation of African Football (CAF). Though Sundowns’ last produced a CAF Champions League-winning team in 2016, they have been among the favourites to win the competition since, reaching the quarter-finals at least in all but one of the past eight seasons.
Williams says that as soon as he joined the club in 2022, he realised he was entering a “winning culture,” where the style of the performance also matters. Sundowns play like a Pep Guardiola team. He says: “You’ve got an owner who wants the best and he gives you everything you need to achieve that. You’ve got to show up.”
The defence and the spine of the South Africa side he leads are made up of Sundowns players and this, admits Williams, helped raise his own levels in Ivory Coast, where they eventually lost to Nigeria in the semi-finals following another penalty shootout.
“I see more things joining up in African football,” Williams says. “The more they join up, the more you will see players and teams winning trophies.”
Born in Port Elizabeth, Williams played as a striker before being inspired by his uncle Maurice ‘Mokes’ Camelio, who was a goalkeeper, to change positions when he was eight. He believes he had the talent to turn professional as an outfield player but his ball skills have helped since because of the new expectations on goalkeepers, who need to be comfortable in possession.
Williams, by his admission, is not the tallest goalkeeper and at 6ft (184cm), wonders whether his height has held him back. The African goalkeepers who have recently made their mark in Europe are much taller, with Bounou at 6ft 5in, Cameroon’s Andre Onana 6ft 3in and Senegal’s French-born Edouard Mendy 6ft 4in.
“If you look at African goalkeepers in general, we are not as physically big as the Europeans,” says Williams, who thinks bigger players in Africa are more inclined to play outfield, leaving a position open at the back for those with smaller frames. “And that is one of the key attributes when you look at a European goalkeeper. The first thing a scout considers is the height. We are not really blessed in that department. But we’ve got the ability and the talent and we’ve shown we can compete at the highest level. We make up in other areas, like shot stopping or distribution. We try to hide our disadvantages with other qualities…”
Williams talks a lot about platforms. While the FIFA Club World Cup, to be held in the United States next summer in a greatly expanded format (32 teams, up from seven), worries European coaches and players due to the potential for burnout, Williams cannot wait for the chance to test himself against some of the best sides in the world.
“It can change our mindset,” Williams says. “It can help people realise the gap isn’t quite as big as it seems. I’m excited. Yes, it extends the season — it is a bit longer. That’s the way football is going now. They want more games and less rest for the players. They want to put the product out there.
“It is tough and it is challenging but it’s rewarding as well. It’s a short period of time that one (player) can play. You can play 15 years at the top level if you are really lucky. You try and make the most of it. I can understand the criticism, but we are excited. We can’t wait to be a part of it, to try and open doors for African football.”
Sundowns qualified for the Club World Cup via their CAF ranking, based on their performances in the African Champions League in each of the past four seasons, when they have reached the semi-finals twice. It means Williams has a big 18 months ahead. After returning from France next week, and then going to the Club World Cup, there is another AFCON late next year and early in 2026 (to be held in Morocco), and then potentially back to the U.S. (or co-hosts Canada and Mexico) for the World Cup that summer.
South Africa are in a good position to qualify for that tournament, and a country Williams believes has “grown leaps and bounds” in recent times, after various disappointments following its hosting of the 2010 World Cup. In that tournament, fellow Africans Ghana nearly made it to the semi-finals — a stage Morocco did reach in the most recent version two years ago.
What does Williams think it will take for an African nation to go all of the way? He insists that moment is closer than ever, due to professional standards being raised in countries like his own, Morocco and Senegal, where the football associations have helped create pathways for young players from youth levels into the senior team.
Despite Morocco being one of South Africa’s main footballing rivals (Sundowns lost head coach Rhulani Mokwena to Wydad Casablanca in July), Williams says he had “goosebumps” as they got to the final four in Qatar. For other nations to follow, according to Williams, federations will need to iron out “the small, negative impact” of issues like bonus discussions or travel arrangements that impact preparation.
“If you give the players everything they need, and there are no distractions,” he says, “they can go all the way.”
(Top photo: Franck Fife/AFP via Getty Images)
