Mngqithi reacts to difficult Caf draw

Mamelodi Sundowns coach Manqoba Mngqithi has reacted to the draw for the Caf Champions League group stages.

The Brazilians will be favourites to qualify to the knockout phase alongside Botola Pro League champions Raja Casablanca of Morocco.

Standing in their way in group B is another Moroccan topflight outfit AS FAR as well as Maniema Union from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Although Sundowns will be odds-on favourites to top the group, Mngqithi knows the difficult task at hand.

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“Generally, all these groups present a difficulty for anyone but be it as difficult as it may be, if you want to win it, you want to play these kinds of matches,” he said.

“It will be very difficult to know which team is going to be difficult between AS FAR and Raja because AS FAR has been on the rise and they have done well in the recent past. Raja was one of the dominant teams previously and they went out and now they are back again at the expense of Wydad Casablanca.

“Raja performed well last season, they did very well and broke a lot of records. AS FAR were pipped to the championship in the latter stages. From where I’m sitting, it would be ignorant of us to think that AS FAR would be less difficult than Raja.”

Meanwhile, Maniema will be playing at this stage of Africa’s premier club competition for the first time in their history following a shock 2-1 aggregate win over Angolan champions Petro de Luanda.

The DRC team is not a completely closed book to Sundowns after the two met three years ago in the second preliminary round of the competition. 

Following a 2-2 draw away from home, the Tshwane giants produced a comfortable 2-0 win. While the focus will be on the big three in the group, Mngqithi is not taking little-known Maniema lightly.

“It’s a banana skin because when we played them in 2021, they were a new team that we didn’t even know about,” he concluded.

“We were told that they were another team that’s on the resurgence, the owners were very ambitious and it’s a team that’s going to become a force to be reckoned with. When you see them in the group, you’re saying that even when we played against them back then, they were not an easy team to play against.

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“They were really a good team and we haven’t really looked at them closely now but when the time is closer, we’ll start following them but for them to qualify with TP Mazembe in the DRC is a clear sign that they have really grown.”