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Reigning world champions France cruised to a 5-0 win over South Africa in an international friendly in Lille on Tuesday night .
Only a fine performance from Bafana Bafana’s Captain Ronwen Williams kept the score from becoming even more embarrassing, as coach Hugo Broos was given a reality check on just how far off the elite level of international football his young team is.
The 5-0 reverse is nonetheless the equal-heaviest defeat SA have suffered in senior international football.
A dominant France scored their goals via a brace from Kylian Mbappe, Olivier Giroud, Wissam Ben Yedder and Matteo Guendouzi.
In his post match media conference, Bafana coach Hugo Broos said they knew before the game that there was a difference of level between the two teams.
"For us the result was really not important, it was more about the experience as we are a young team with young players and we don't have the experience that the French players have," he said.
Broos noted that this was the World Champions they were up against and that his players had fought hard and done what they had to do.
"When there is such a difference of quality it can happen that you lose the game with this result - its not a shame for us that we lose the game 5-0 but we know why and the experience we gained tonight is more important than the defeat."
Captain Ronwen Williams agreed that it had been a wonderful experience playing against a team of France's stature and that his players will certainly learn a lot from this encounter with the World Champions.
"It can only make us a better team going forward as we were focused more on the performance than the result," he said.
Williams said there were a lot of positives Bafana will take into their Qualifiers in June and a lot of negatives too that the team needs to work on to get better.
