Sundowns launch CL group stage campaign with victory over Hilal

It took Mamelodi Sundowns just 25 minutes to find the back of the net in their 1-0 win against Sudanese side Al-Hilal on Saturday afternoon at the Loftus Versfeld Stadium.

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Downs marked the opening of their Caf Champions League group stage campaign with a victory over Florent Ibenge’s side.  

After numerous attempts, it was Casius Mailula who broke the deadlock in the 25th minute, but credit has to go to Neo Maema who fired from range, trying to beat goalkeeper Ali Aboeshren, but the Hilal goalie did enough to parry the ball away, however it landed on the path of Mailula, who had the easiest of tap-ins.

Sundowns began the second stanza with the same energy they left off in the first half and they were unlucky not to get the second goal. It was again a Maema and Mailula effort as the former played a ball over the top to find Mailula. The youngster kept calm to beat Aboeshren but the goal was disallowed as assistant referee Nabina Sebutu raised his flag for offside to deny Mailula his brace.

Mailula was at the thick of things again in the 70th minute when he tried to place the ball into the corner of the net, but this time around, the goalkeeper was up to the task as he dived to make a splendid save.

The visitors had a few moments of their own with the likes of Ousmane Diouf and Makabi Glody leading most of Hilal’s moves forward. However, the defensive pairing of Mothobi Mvala and Grant Kekana remained resolute to make sure that the hosts walked away with maximum points.

In the dying moments of the game, defender Altabyeb Abdalla was shown a red card for intentionally handling the ball to stop a Sundowns counter attack.

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Meanwhile in other Champions League games played earlier, Raja Casablanca had a field day on Friday night when they demolished Vipers 5-0 while Egyptian giants Zamalek were beaten 1-0 at home by CR Belouizdad. Petro Atletico and JS Kabyile played out to a goalless draw.