Mamelodi Sundowns have done homework on Champions League foes
Mamelodi Sundowns coach Rhulani Mokwena has revealed that extensive scouting work has gone into preparing the Brazilians to face Sudanese club Al-Hilal Omdurman.
Sundowns get their Caf Champions League campaign underway when they host the Sudan Premier League runners-up at Loftus Versfeld on Saturday.
Sundowns have Al Hilal well scouted
Group B of the Caf Champions League also includes DRC-based superclub TP Mazembe and Algerian champions CR Belouizdad.
Mokwena says that Sundowns scouting network and video analysts have watched a number of Al Hilal games including their qualifiers and a friendly tournament.
The studious Sundowns coach conceded that they weren’t able to get a good look at Al Hilal with all of their Sudan national team players in the fold but individual scouting has helped them fill in the blanks
“Al-Hilal are not a closed book to us because we have watched even their qualifiers in CAF, their games against Asante Kotoko, the 1-0 win away from home,” Mokwena said.
“They had a competition now where they had a three-team tournament with TP Mazembe and Simba and we watched that.
“Unfortunately, at that moment they also had a couple of important players with the Sudanese national team that went into CHAN, they were not part of that three-team tournament.
“But we also had to look at them because we saw a couple of very good individual performances from them in CHAN where the Sudanese national team lost to Nigeria. That helped us to profile some of the players that we were not able to see within the team context.”
Al Hilal come into the match off the back of a 3-0 win over Al Ahli Khartoum in midweek and currently occupy second in their domestic league, one point off the leaders with a game in hand. They have gone unbeaten in eight league assignments this season and won all four of their Caf Champions League playoff matches to reach the group stage of the competition for the second year in succession. Their best performances in continental football came in the African Cup of Champions Clubs which would become the Champions League. They twice reached the final, in 1987 and 1992.
Sundowns have face Al Hilal in the Champions League before having lost out to the Sudanese club over two legs in the Second preliminary round in 2008. Sundowns lost the first leg 4-2 before achieving a 1-0 win at home which was insufficient to overturn Al Hilal’s adavantage.
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