Mamelodi Sundowns of South Africa won a fairytale first CAF Champions League title on Sunday despite a 1-0 second-leg loss to Zamalek of Egypt in Alexandria.<\/p>\n
A Stanley Ohawuchi goal on 64 minutes was not enough for the home team as they trailed by three goals from the first leg in Pretoria last weekend and lost 3-1 on aggregate.<\/p>\n
It was a remarkable triumph because the South Africans were eliminated in the final qualifying round in April only to be reinstated when their Democratic Republic of Congo opponents were disqualified.<\/p>\n
Success for Sundowns made them $1.5 million (1.38 million euros) richer and secured a place at the FIFA Club World Cup in Japan during December.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was an amazing journey of ups and downs and now we are the champions of Africa,\u201d said Sundowns\u2019 Zimbabwe striker Khama Billiat.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe look forward to Japan and facing the best clubs in the game. It is going to be an absolute pleasure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Winger Keagan Dolly said: \u201cWe knew it was going to be difficult because Zamalek are a great team with some outstanding individuals.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome people will say we were lucky to get a second chance after being eliminated, but I believe we deserve to be African champions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Goalkeeper Ahmed El Shenawy and captain and midfielder \u201cShikabala\u201d were among those dropped as Zamalek coach Moamen Soliman made four changes from the side that started the first leg.<\/p>\n
Sundowns coach Pitso Mosimane had to make one enforced alteration with huge Ivorian centre-back Bangaly Soumahoro coming in for suspended Wayne Arendse.<\/p>\n
Although facing a mammoth task, history offered a hope to Zamalek with two of three previous Champions League finalists in a similar predicament emerging as overall winners.<\/p>\n
An estimated 60,000 predominantly Zamalek supporters were inside the 86,000-capacity Borg El Arab Stadium on the outskirts of Alexandria as the match kicked off.<\/p>\n
There are few more nerve-inducing factors in African football than a large Egyptian crowd roaring on their team, but Sundowns calmly survived early pressure.<\/p>\n
The first scoring chance for the hosts came after 12 minutes when Nigerian Ohawuchi burst through and beat goalkeeper Dennis Onyango, but the ball trickled wide.<\/p>\n
Ugandan Onyango, a 2016 Africa-based Footballer of the Year finalist, needed medical attention three times before being replaced by Wayne Sandilands on 28 minutes.<\/p>\n
Striker Basem Morsy had been headlined as the Zamalek dangerman, but recent signing Ohawuchi was posing a bigger threat.<\/p>\n
A wild but crucial clearance from Soumahoro foiled another attempt by the Nigerian to break the deadlock before Sundowns began to threaten going forward.<\/p>\n
The first serious chance for the South Africans came on 35 minutes when awarded a free-kick just outside the box, but captain Hlompho Kekana struck the ball into the wall.<\/p>\n
Zamalek goalkeeper Mahmoud Abdel Rahim did well to push away a goal-bound shot from Percy Tau and a looping Billiat shot struck the top of the crossbar before flying wide.<\/p>\n
The injuries to Onyango meant eight minutes of first-half stoppage time during which Liberian Anthony Laffor troubled Zamalek twice with a shot and a header.<\/p>\n
Half-time arrived with the second leg goalless and Sundowns retaining the three-goal advantage they established in Pretoria last weekend.<\/p>\n
Zamalek started the second half as they did the first, controlling possession and territory but rarely looking like cracking open Sundowns\u2019 \u00a0defence.<\/p>\n
After 64 minutes the Egyptian outfit scored and it was no surprise that the goal came from livewire Ohawuchi.<\/p>\n
Receiving possession well outside the box, he beat one man and unleashed a low, long-range drive that flew into the corner of the net off the left hand of Sandilands.<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
Source: CAF<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mamelodi Sundowns of South Africa won a fairytale first CAF Champions League title on Sunday despite a 1-0 second-leg loss to Zamalek of Egypt in Alexandria. A Stanley Ohawuchi goal on 64 minutes was not enough for the home team as they trailed by three goals from the first leg in Pretoria last weekend and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":261077,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-261076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=261076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261076\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/261077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=261076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=261076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=261076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}