Mamelodi Sundowns secured a place in the 2025/26 CAF Champions League semi-finals where they will face Esperance Sportive de Tunis after a 3-2 aggregate win over Stade Malien.
Sundowns have made a dramatic turnaround in the competition, where they were on the brink of elimination from the group stage, needing a win in the final game against their former head coach Rulani Mokwena – with MC Alger.
They overcame the challenge with a 2-0 win at Loftus Versfeld to finish runners-up behind Al Hial and made light work of the Mali top-flight champions who topped a group ahead of Esperance, Petro Atletico and Simba SC.
Their heroics came to an abrupt halt after a 3-0 first leg defeat in Tshwane last week – which prevented their solid performance at home to mean much – as they beat Sundowns 2-0 in Bamako.
Taddeus Nkeng opened the scoring in the opening minute, which had Masandawana shell shocked, Haman Mandjan looked to have made it 2-0 before the half hour mark but it was ruled out as off-side by Video Assistant Refereeing (VAR).
The Cameroon international winger, did, however, find the net shortly after to make it a nervy ending to the half, but Sundowns steadied the ship in the second half and despite Aubrey Modiba seeing red with 15 minutes to go – they handled the blistering heat to see out the game.
Sundowns will now face the Tunisian champions, who Cardoso led the final of the competition three seasons ago before achieving the same feat with Masandawana in the following campaign – and now on course for a third consecutive season.
