South Africa defender Grant Kekana has praised goalkeeper Rowen Williams for his impressive display in Bafana Bafana’s victory against Cape Verde on Saturday night.
The Bafana Bafana claimed a place in the last four after a 2-1 penalty shootout victory against Cape Verde.
Williams made two superb saves in regulation time.
The Mamelodi Sundowns shot stopper then saved four penalties in the shootout.
“World-class keeper, all I can say… I think he should be made the minister of finance, he can save South Africa’s economy,” Kekana said after the game.
Hugo Broos’ side will face the Super Eagles of Nigeria in the semi-finals at the Stade de la Paix, Bouake on Wednesday.
The encounter will kick-off at 6pm Nigeria time.
27 Comments
It is just impossible to score against this South African goalkeeper. Nigeria will find it rough because Nwabili cannot do what this Williams doing. This is the worst team we should be facing because South Africa are the best team.
What’s your problem? You can pledge your loyalty to SA for all we care, like I told you before, come back here Wednesday evening okay.
@Femi, no problem. Just being a realist. This Williams will make life difficult. Percy Tau is just unbelievable.
Don’t mind femi @nnamdi west. You can’t invite people like femi as a guest on your show. He will shoot the other guest if their opinion doesn’t tally with his.. And it is very wrong .I mean what happened to people being entitled to their opinion? Honestly femi you and others here have a lot to learn..
No femi rather we are suppose to be asking you what is your problem? Because you always get upset when your opinion and others don’t tally…
But they were beaten by Mali with 2 goals s how they score against him if it’s that do difficult to score against them ?
I mean if it’s that so difficult to score against him ?
Those 2 goals were a mistake. Even at that he has got better in the knockout stages. This Williams is far better than Nwabili. You can’t deny that.
Lol goals were scored by mistake before now must that be an issue. Let’s wait till Wednesday na
Are there ever goals not scored by mistake? Every goal scored against any team is always a consequence of mistakes.
How many goals has Nwabali conceded so far? Just 1 abi? Na waa for you.
Yes we can and if its worth that much to you why do you feel the need to keep repeating yourself here to people who don’t want to hear it? This is like the tenth time you are posting all over this blog site about your love and admiration for Bafana Bafana and their keeper? Once is enough, no one here is deaf or blind and you are sounding like a broken record – If Williams is far better than Nwabili as you keep saying, then are you not better off taking it to the bank instead of wasting it here on people who don’t want to hear it?
Also what games are you playing? Why would you sign up as Nnamdi West (A Nigerian name) when everybody knows that you are not a Nigerian?
This site has an advanced algorithm that shows the carbon footsteps of posters and your’s is showing that you are not Nigerian – Or you didn’t know about the Internet carbon footstep protocol?
Edit- Message above is for Mr Nnamdi West
If Nigeria wins, then shame on you. You want to compare south Africa’s overall performance in this tournament with that of Nigeria? If south africa is invincible, why did they place 2nd in their group with only 4 points and only managed to escape cape Verde? Abeg go and sit down.
Almost all their players and goal keeper are from one club.
@Beryl you are a realist. How can we just defeat an organised team like South Africa when most of their players are local based. Hopefully the Super Eagles will win but it will be fight to finish. South Africa are too good. Percy Tau is the best.
It is their goalkeeper who help them. I don’t know how you just derate nwabali with all safes he has made.
Mind you, there is no team will not fear lookman, oshimhen and Simon even if they have scored many.
Forget they are not that good, cape verde could not utilized there chances moreover luck was on the side of the SA
Too good with only 4 points in group stage and placed 2nd.Story.
This guy no be Nigerian, even from the way he type sef I know them wela
South Africa is beatable by a mile. Take that from me. Mali outplayed them, same as Cape Verde who dominated them and even wasted many scoring chances. In fact, CV have themselves to blame for allowing this match to drag into the penalities. That isnt going to be our case, trust me. As a matter of fact, if Nigerian players fear the way some of us, the fans, do, they would have gone home since.
We’ve doubted this team too much. We gave them no chance from the word go, but somehow, they are proving us wrong. We’ve played stronger opponents than SA. To me, Angola is by far a more difficult customer than SA. We defeated them. Nobody rated SEs against CIV, but we won. We sent Cameroon crashing too. So, what’s this fuss about this Bafana Bafana? Enyeana was superb against Argentina at the 2010 WC, but we still lost! Same in 2014 too. Except in special situations, a keeper is as good as the defence protecting him. No goalkeeper can single-handedly win a match for a team.
We are already making a god out of a goalie that was beaten twice by Mali and also twice by Rwanda. What we fail to see is the self-belief, that self-confidence, the spirit of we-can-do running in that Nigerian team. With their new found form, they are ready for any team no matter what.
They may not be scoring in numbers; it’s down to the tactics employed to mitigate the effect of that lack of imperious and commanding midfield quality. Funny enough, this hasn’t even prevented them from creating chances. In fact, I don’t know of any team in this competition that has more disallowed goals or created more scoring chances than this Nigerian team! The figures are there. South Africa should tremble not us. People reference the Moroccan team they beat. Are we for reaj? South Africa has always beaten North African teams. I don’t know why but in their 7 meetings with these Maghreb teams at the AFCON, SA has secured victories six good times! Same at the club level. So that edge is there for them.
SEs have breached very difficult defences in this competition, and if not for the profligate tendency of our players, especially the wing backs and our front three, we should by now be the highest scoring side at this AFCON.
Williams is about to face his most difficult nightmare ever! Nigeria will come out smoking. They know what it means to lose this match. All this talk of Williams suddenly becoming the Trojan Wall boils down to the defence before him and maybe his proficiency at saving penalities. By the time he faces the trio of Osimhen, Lookmam and Simon, he will know what Teko Ekambi meant when he said teams will soon realize why Nigeria is a candidate for the cup.
South Africa is the least of my worry right now tbh. They’ve never been a problem to us at the AFCON. My major concern is the likelihood of facing CIV again. And even at that, there’s no cause for alarm.
Thanks @Papafemi for silencing those two pessimistic individuals above. I have just realized something even if Nigeria wins this cup that guy called Monkey will still condemn the team. He is doing it for fun or he has psychological problem. I don’t just understand why he kept writing rubbish in this forum. That guys sucks and from now on i will try not to read his post We will win South Africa and if they are not careful they will be well beaten. Watch this space.
How can someone in his right senses say a keeper is impossible to beat. Are you kidding me? Many people here are just funny.
Even if 9ja go play Lesotho, some will always rate them high, don’t know why we don’t respect our own as if the other teams won’t fear us .. They’ve started hyping south Africa again lol
The only team that can stop super eagles right now is themselves, not even CIV the host. If they underestimate SA then they will pay the praise on Wednesday, if not, the fate of Angola await them three days from now. As for he goalkeeper been good on pk is against teams that are poor in pk. Don’t also forget pk is a game of luck.
Like somebody wrote before now, SA can never be our problem and will never be our problem. Their defense are very easy to break and bridge, and their goalkeeper is not fantastic as people are painting him to be. Anyways, Wednesday will tell
Those of us who remember the story of Paraguay and their enigmatic keeper, Chilavet, at France 98 will know that Williams is a kid where that guy dey.
He was not just a keeper or just the team’s captain, he was like a coach on the field of play. He was feared and resoected by his team mates and one of the very few keepers in history with the highest number of goals scored. Chilavet was a colossus within the poles, lifted his team literally from a group containing Nigeria, Bulgaria and Spain and handed a second round ticket. But when his team met a well-oiled French attack in that round, even though he stood between the Les Blues and the quarter final for a while, he still buckled under pressure at a point. That’s to tell you that the influence of a keeper in a match has its own limitations.
No keeper in this AFCON can stop the SEs; they’ve scored in every match they played, and that unyielding defence has given that team an added solidity. So watch out.
South Africa will fight. This I know, but they’re going to face a team tbat is not ready to concede and is willing to score at anytime. If you’re a coach and has a team, the SE isn’t a bunch of destroyers you’d would wanna meet. Like I said earlier, South Africa should be the ones to tremble, not the SEs.
Even in the days of AC Milan with Stam, Madini, Cafu and Dida in post, depotivo la corona still kill them out with four goals. Juve with Thurman, carnavero, Zambroto along with Buffon for post still collect from arsenal and Liverpool not to talk of goalkeeper that have not face baptism of fire