South African treble champions Mamelodi Sundowns are set to host Sudanese outfit Al-Hilal Omdurman in their first Group B encounter on February 13th at their Champions league slaughter house, Loftus Versfeld stadium.
The South African powerhouse come into this fixture on the back of 3 successive wins in all competitions, a run that came on the back of 3 successive draws, a frustrating period for the Chloorkop based outfit that was hampered by injuries and medical related reasons to key personnel in the Sundowns camp.
Their hospital ward is slowly emptying up as they have recently welcomed back the likes of Rivaldo Coetzee, Ricardo Nascimento, Lyle Lakay and look set to welcome back their captain Hlompho Kekana and Denis Onyango to the team
The South African giants are on a 20 match unbeaten home run in the Champions League, last tasting defeat at home to ES Tunis in 2017, since then, they have won 15 and drawn 5 games, a very healthy run that puts them in a very good position coming into their first group stage encounter in this year’s edition.
Last year’s CAF CL campaign was a record breaking run for the South African champions as they became the first South African team to finish the group stages unbeaten as they won 4 and drew twice in their 6 group matches, a run that saw them topping their group only to fall short 3-1 on aggregate to eventual Champions Al Ahly.
It will be very criminal to take their upcoming clash lightly as Al-Hilal had a great run themselves last year that saw them collecting 10 points in a group that had Etoile Sportive Du Sahel and Al Ahly, collecting a famous 1 nil away win at the Stade Olympique de Sousse Stadium and will be looking to cause another upset this weekend.
Sundowns recently swept past Botswana outfit Jwaneng FC 5-1 while Al-Hilal won all 3 of their qualification matches beating Vipers SC 1-0 home and away, and got past Asante Kotoko 1-0 away, the second leg had to be called off after a number of players and officials from the Kotoko camp “allegedly” tested positive for COVID-19, this enabled the Sudanese outfit to progress to the group stages.
CAF have recently announced that Egyptian referee Gehad Griesha, a well respected and experienced official will officiate this mouthwatering clash that will kick off at 18h00 this Saturday.
A win for Mamelodi Sundowns will give them a huge lift in their quest of topping the group stages for the second time running. TP Mazembe will also be taking on CR Belouidzdad on the same day at the TP Mazembe stadium, kick off at 18h00.
Do you mind if I quote a couple of your articles as long as I provide credit and sources back to your blog? My blog is in the exact same area of interest as yours and my visitors would certainly benefit from a lot of the information you provide here. Please let me know if this ok with you. Thanks! Olympia Ambrosi Vasilek