Ronwen Williams can pinpoint when his life changed for ever. In 2002, the future South Africa captain was a 10-year-old from Gelvandale, a notorious suburb of Gqeberha, formerly known as Port Elizabeth, when his cousin was shot dead while working as a security guard.
“He was killed around the corner from where we were playing in the street,” Williams says. “The next thing you know, my cousin was being rushed to hospital. The area was filled with gangsterism, alcohol and drug abuse.”
Thanks to the guidance of his football-obsessed family, however, Williams was able to escape. He was spotted playing for the local side Shatterprufe Rovers and moved to SuperSport United’s academy in Pretoria two years after his cousin’s death. “It was the best thing that happened to me,” he says.
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“Before I became a teenager and started experimenting with all these bad things that were happening. I would say that football saved my life.”
Williams is reflecting on the journey that has taken him from Gelvandale to being the only player from an African club to have made the shortlist for the Lev Yashin trophy – the award for the world’s best goalkeeper that will be handed out at next month’s Ballon d’Or ceremony.
In South Africa’s Africa Cup of Nations quarter-final against Cape Verde in January he matched the all-time record of four saves in a penalty shootout at a major international tournament as Bafana Bafana reached the last four for the first time since 2000.
Williams, who has captained his club, Mamelodi Sundowns, to the South African league title and victory at the inaugural Africa Football League in the past 12 months, says his incredible performance against Cape Verde was also inspired by personal tragedy.
As he prepared to face each penalty, the 32-year-old could be seen talking to himself and looking up at the sky as if he was getting advice from someone. It was his brother Marvin, who died in a car crash when Williams was 18. “Sometimes I ask him to take control and show me which way to go. He’s like my guardian angel,” he says.
Then there was what Williams describes as “chirping”. “Against Cape Verde, the first penalty set the tone for the whole shootout,” he says. “I had seen Bebé take a penalty the week before at Afcon and I told him: ‘You went straight last week so I know you’re going to my right this time.’ I told him which way he was going and that’s what happened.
View image in fullscreenRonwen Williams saves a penalty during South Africa’s Afcon quarter-final penalty shootout against Cape Verde. Photograph: Franck Fife/AFP/Getty Images
“You just try to mess with his mind a bit and make him indecisive. I try to follow trends – the way players stand or if they are giving you the eyes. But players are getting clever and they know that we are studying them as well. The goal is so big that players are supposed to score, so we have to do everything we can to make it seem smaller.”
Like his mother, Hazel, who was still playing for Shatterprufe when she was six months pregnant with him, Williams started out as a striker before switching to goalkeeper to follow in his uncle’s footsteps. SuperSport’s academy had a link with Tottenham and that enabled him to come to the UK in 2008 for a youth tournament where a young Ryan Mason played for Spurs and he also faced Manchester United and Hibernian.
“That was an eye-opener, to see how things are done at the highest level,” he says. “But we saw that we had the quality to compete because we drew both games against Tottenham and Man United.”
Williams was making the transition from SuperSport’s academy to first team when Marvin – who was seven years older than him – died. It took the persuasion of his coach, Kwanele Kopo, to convince him to resume his career.
“That was probably the lowest time in my life,” Williams says. “I lost the passion I had because he was probably my biggest supporter. It took months for me to love the game again.
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“My whole family tried to talk me out of [stopping playing] but I was convinced that was it. Then the coach said that whatever I do in my career from now on I should do it for my brother and there was a change in my mindset.”
Williams joined Sundowns in 2022 having made almost 300 appearances for SuperSport and has been captain of South Africa since 2021. Only two members of the squad that reached the semi-finals in Ivory Coast this year played for clubs in Europe and he thinks that despite their improved performances under the Belgian Hugo Broos, Bafana would benefit from more going overseas.
View image in fullscreenRonwen Williams with the goalkeeper of the tournament award (right) and South Africa’s fair play team award at the 2024 Africa Cup of Nations. Photograph: Sunday Alamba/AP
“The players need to have bigger dreams. Europe is the ultimate for every player and we have the ability to play on the big stage,” he says. “I still have dreams and if something comes then I will grab it with both hands. But at this moment what the club is offering me in South Africa is amazing.
“To play in the Club World Cup speaks volumes of what we want to achieve. Yes, I would love to be [in Europe] but Sundowns are also giving me the chance to compete against the best.”
Sundowns qualified for next summer’s expanded tournament in the United States courtesy of their consistent performances in the African Champions League over the past four seasons, including two semi-finals. But while Williams says he is cautious about the effect of cramming even more matches into an already crammed schedule, the prospect of potentially facing Manchester City’s Erling Haaland is one he insists he is looking forward to.
“That would be wonderful and it’s a massive possibility,” he says. “But if you want to be the best then you have to compete against the best and he’s the best striker in the world right now. It will probably take the whole team to stop him.
“Of course we’re excited, but it’s also a lot of football and we know at Sundowns that we play 60 to 70 games a season. The travel that we have to do all around the massive African continent is not so easy. We know it will be tough but we have to be prepared as best we can. Hopefully we can go out there and show our worth.”
