Bafana Bafana captain Ronwen Williams says they know the importance of qualification and mean business before the crucial 2026 Fifa World Cup qualifier against Zimbabwe at Moses Mabhida Stadium on Friday (6pm).
Bafana must beat the Warriors on Friday in Durban and Rwanda on Tuesday in Mbombela to stay on course for automatic qualification for the global showpiece in the US, Mexico and Canada next year.
Bafana go into these two matches second on the log, below Benin, who they will be hoping drop points against fourth-placed Rwanda to regain the top spot in Group C that is wide open.
The other important match of the group sees Lesotho, who got three points from the match where Bafana fielded ineligible Teboho Mokoena earlier in the year, host Nigeria at Peter Mokaba Stadium in Polokwane.
“Its coming to an end now and we know what’s at stake,” said Williams as they wrapped up their preparations in Durban.
“This is the business end of the qualifiers, and nothing needs to change. We need to be the same team we have been for the past two or three years.
“We have been growing; we have been good, but we need to finish it on a positive note because we have set ourselves high standards.”
Williams said they must win the two matches to avoid a situation of needing favours from other teams.
“When we started the World Cup campaign, we said we wanted to qualify for the World Cup, and it is close now. It is in our hands, and that’s the most important thing.
“We are not going to look for favours from other teams; we want to get the job done, and that’s the mentality we all have. That is the mentality in the camp.
“We have two important games, and we know how tough it’s going to be; they are not going to make it easy for us, and we don’t expect them to do that.
“If you saw how training was this week, you could see the boys mean business, and they know it’s important for us to qualify.”
Williams said they have moved on from the points deduction debacle and are fully focused on Zimbabwe and Rwanda.
“It wasn’t good news, but there is nothing we can do about it. We need to control what we can control, and that’s the next two games against Zimbabwe and Rwanda. We still have a big opportunity, and we know how important it is to qualify for the World Cup.
“Either way, these two games were going to be important, and we have to get the job done. We haven’t spoken about it because we can’t do anything about it now.
“We’d rather focus on the next two games, and the energy I saw at training this week showed the guys mean business.”
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