Former Mamelodi Sundowns coach Pitso Mosimane has backed his former club to clinch this season’s CAF Champions League title in order to shift the status quo of North African dominance.
Sundowns will it have all to do over two legs against ASFAR to secure a second star. In the last 10 seasons there’s only been one side from outside North Africa that have won Africa’s premium club title which is Sundowns.
Five times it was won by an Egyptian side, two of those times under Mosimane during his time at Al Ahly, twice by a Tunisian outfit and twice a Moroccan club.
Mosimane told iDiski Times senior journalist Matshelane Mamabolo in the latest edition of the newspaper that it should be third time lucky for Sundowns coach Miguel Cardoso who has come second in the last two editions and importantly to break the Northern dominance.
“Look, even in the Champions League, I won it twice with Al Ahly and went to the third final but lost to Walid Regragui, the coach of the Morocco national team now,” Mosimane told iDiski Times.
“It’s all about… Look, it’s… It’s a difficult one, because it’s about organisation. What I know is that Sundowns are able to score away. Okay, they are not big scorers away, and sometimes they concede – look at the quarter-finals [Sundowns lost 2-0 away to Stade Malien].
“But at home, they are powerful. So, I think the coach believes that it’s his time – a third time lucky kind of thing. And I want Sundowns to win it. It’s been 10 years since we won it. We should win it again.
“We should win it because if you look at the last eight years, the Champions League – and even the Confederation Cup – 95 or 98% of it has been won by the Arabs, for a good eight years. No, we must change the status quo.
“And Sundowns are alone because [TP] Mazembe is no longer there; Enyimba is no longer there. Yanga [Young Africans] and Simba 9SC] are not there yet. So, who else must win it if we don’t?”
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