Bafana Bafana captain and Mamelodi Sundowns star Ronwen Williams has made history by being nominated for the prestigious Yassine Trophy at the Ballon d'Or awards.
Williams was the only African among the ten nominees for FIFA's World Goalkeeper of the Year award.
He is the first goalkeeper to be nominated by the club whilst playing for an African club, having kept 35 clean sheets in 59 games in the 2023/2024 season.
He was named the best goalkeeper at AFCON 2023. He kept four clean sheets at AFCON 2023. He won the African Football League and the South African League with Mamelodi Sundowns. He won the 2023 AFCON bronze medal with South Africa.
The Yashin Award nomination puts Williams alongside some of the world's best goalkeepers, including Diogo Costa (FC Porto), Gianluigi Donnarumma (Paris Saint-Germain), Gregor Kobel (Borussia Dortmund), Andriy Lunin (Real Madrid), Mike Maignan (AC Milan), Giorgi Mamardashvili (Valencia), Emiliano Martinez (Aston Villa), Unai Simon (Athletic Bilbao) and Yann Sommer (Inter Milan).
The award is named after legendary Russian goalkeeper Lev Yashin, the only goalkeeper to have won the Ballon d'Or (1963), and celebrates the world's greatest goalkeeping talent. Past winners of the Yashin Award include Emiliano Martinez (2023), Thibaut Courtois (2022), Gianluigi Donnarumma (2021) and Alisson Becker (2019).