South Africa centre-back Siyabonga Ngezana has hailed the experience gained from major European games for FCSB, and stressed the importance of being a mentor in Bafana Bafana's young Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) squad.
South Africa will face Cameroon in the AFCON last 16 on Sunday, a magnitude of fixture that he is one of the players most accustomed to in an exciting, but inexperienced squad.
Ngezana featured for Romanian giants FCSB (formerly called Steaua Bucharest) in a UEFA Europa League clash with Manchester United on January 30 last year, and the boyhood United fan said he learned from the experience, even in a 2-0 loss.
On lessons learned from crunch clashes in Europe, he told ESPN: "You need to be sharp and not drop your head. You have to play the 90 minutes, so there's a lot [to focus on]. To score a goal takes only a second."
Ngezana (28) is one of Bafana's senior players. Among regular starters, only Ronwen Williams (33), Khuliso Mudau (30), Aubrey Modiba (30) and Teboho Mokoena (28) are older, and the latter only by a few months.
At club level, Williams, Mudau, Modiba and Mokoena have been stalwarts in a dominant Mamelodi Sundowns side that has excelled in CAF competitions in recent years. Ngezana, meanwhile, brings different experiences to the group due to his two and a half years with FCSB since signing from Kaizer Chiefs.
"We have [16] players who haven't played this tournament. It's quite amazing and as players, we're growing because a lot of players, half of the squad, are inexperienced," Ngezana, one of the AFCON debutants himself, told reporters.
Despite having never played an AFCON before, Ngezana still carries a wealth of experience compared to many younger teammates in their early 20s.
He added: "As a player, you grow. The more you go outside, the more you see life in a different way and football in a different way. I think [going to Romania] helped me a lot to grow not just as a player, but as a human being."
The youngest regular starter is his centre-back partner, Mbekezeli Mbokazi (20). The new Chicago Fire FC defender was immense in the 2-1 win over Angola and 1-0 loss to Egypt in Bafana's first two group stage games, but struggled in the 3-2 win over Zimbabwe.
Mbokazi was at fault for Zimbabwe's first goal as he failed to stop the marauding run of Tawanda Maswanhise, but remained vocal on the pitch and later charged upfield in an attempt to score on the counter-attack.
"You saw the intensity of the game. They scored, we scored, they scored, and we never gave up. Mistakes are going to happen. In the game, it's normal. You're trying to do something and mistakes are going to be there, but the most important thing is not to drop our heads and to carry on," Ngezana reflected.
On playing in a defensive unit featuring offensive-minded players such as Mbokazi and Aubrey Modiba, Ngezana said: "It's our job to cover each other... We need to run more distance.
"It goes back to the style of playing and how we play. We press high, so in those spaces, you need to cover and do extra runs. Sometimes, you're going to get it right and sometimes, you're going to get it wrong."
When he was a young first-team regular at Kaizer Chiefs, Ngezana himself learned precisely how best to silence the critics best. In his words: "By winning."