14 November 2025 – Bafana Bafana captain Ronwen Williams returns home to Gqeberha, Eastern Cape, on Saturday to lead the South African senior men’s national team against Zambia at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium in an international friendly match that will be anything but cordial. Kickoff is at 15h00.
Williams said the Bafana Bafana players intend to carry out coach Hugo Broos’ message and treat this international friendly match against Zambia with the same competitive mentality they usually have for FIFA World Cup and Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) qualifiers.
“First and foremost, it’s lovely to come home and play in front of the home fans, and also play in front of passionate fans who gave us so much joy. The guys are excited to be here,” he said.
“It’s been a wonderful week of hard work. You can see this is a team that means business. The intensity at training was very high this week. It’s been a wonderful camp. There haven’t been any issues, everyone reported for camp, there were no injuries, and the mood is obviously very high, but the players know there’s a job to do.
“There’s so much at stake for this game. Like the coach has mentioned before, this is not a friendly game. It’s another game, it’s an international match and we’re obviously also using it as preparation for the Africa Cup of Nations in December.”
Broos said he was pleased after seeing the players carrying out his instructions perfectly at training the whole week. “I think that the captain was already clear about what happened this week at training. So, I am very happy after what I saw. You know, it’s always a little bit dangerous when you play a friendly game,” he said.
“But what I saw this week at training, that makes me happy because you see the guys are ready again to give the best of themselves and try to win the game.”
Zambia coach Moses Sichone said they were looking forward to playing against their COSAFA neighbours.
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