Three South African soccer clubs taking part in the Confederation of African Football (CAF) continental cup competitions have been tasked this weekend to do the improbable, if not the impossible, for two of these clubs have to reverse their first-round losses.
South African clubs Kaizer Chiefs and Supersport United have complained about allegedly bad refereeing decisions in their first-leg matches.
Premier Soccer League champions Kaizer Chiefs were trashed 4-0 by Esperance of Tunisia in Tunisia two weeks ago. It is alleged by Chiefs coach Ted Dumutri that Esperance were given two penalties, within 10 minutes of the game, that were not suppose to be awarded.
Chiefs’ dream of becoming continental champions look shattered and their chances of reversing that 4-0 drubbing on Saturday, at the Rustenburg Stadium in the North West, look slim.
The glamour boys of South African football will need to score five goals, with Esperance scoring none. Chiefs have already spent close to R1-million in this tournament on accommodation, food and transportation. The only way they can hope to recoup this amount is by beating Esperance by five goals and ensuring themselves a place in the group stages of the African Champions League.
Esperance will not be pushovers, as they have managed to reach three semifinals and two finals of this tournament. They hold the record of never missing the tournament’s group stages, and if that is not enough, they have only lost once to South African opposition, against Sundowns in 2000.
The Tunisian club provide about 40% of their players to their national team. Current players in the national team from Esperance are Jose Clayton, Radhi Jaidi, Khaled Badra, Jaohar Mnari and Ali Zitouni. Esperance have also won eight Tunisian league titles in the past 12 years.
While Chiefs face a daunting task in their African Champions League campaign, fellow participants Ajax Cape Town go into their second-leg game against Fello Stars Labe of Guinea with a comfortable 2-0 victory.
A win or draw for Ajax against the Guinea club this weekend would see them go through to the group stages of the African Champions League, where the money is. Only two South African teams have reached this stage: Sundowns and, in recent times, their nemesis, Supersport United.
The return of Moneep Josephs to the Ajax goalkeeper’s post will motivate the players, after their star ‘keeper was kept on the sidelines while soccer’s governing body, Fifa, and the South African Football Association (Safa) were at loggerheads on whether Josephs’s six-month ban from soccer is justifiable.
In another continental cup game, Supersport United play St Eloi Lupopo of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). United will have to come back from a 2-0 deficit incurred against Lupopo in the DRC.
United’s problem in this tournament is that their first-leg game, which was to be played on Saturday in the DRC, was cancelled due to match officials missing their transport to the game. This resulted in a 48-hour delay, and the game was played on Monday, when they suffered their 2-0 defeat.
Supersport will be hoping that home advantage in the second leg against St Lupopo on Sunday, and their sterling 3-2 victory performance against Sundowns in the Absa Cup over the past weekend, will help lift them into the next round of the CAF cup.