Downs Ladies on the brink of history in Caf’s Champions League
● Just like their Chloorkop male counterparts, Mamelodi Sundowns Ladies have a serious appetite for African football success.
But Banyana Ba Style are aware African queenship will not come easy.
Sundowns Ladies are on the verge of making history when they take on Sporting Casablanca in the final of the Women’s Caf Champions League tonight.
The decider will be played at Amadou Gon Coulibaly Stadium in Ivory Coast (7pm, SA time) where the tournament has been taking place over the past two weeks.
The South African champions have already pulled off a beautiful achievement by being the first side to reach the Champions League final three times in a row.
Now they stand a chance to become the first team to win the tournament twice.
Also, from a South African perspective, no club, either men or women, has won the Champions League twice.
Sundowns’ men’s team (2016) and Orlando Pirates (1995) have both won it once while Masandawana also won the inaugural African Football League (AFL) last weekend.
Banyana Ba Style were the inaugural champions in this competition in 2021 before losing to FAR Rabat, who are probably the best club in Africa, in the final last year.
Rabat, who boast a host of Moroccan national team players, were knocked out 1-0 by Sundowns in the semifinals through a goal by Boitumelo Rabale.
Sundowns coach Jerry Tshabalala said beating Rabat, who embarrassed them with a 4-0 defeat in the final in the previous edition of the Champions League, has been a big confidence booster ahead of the final.
Founded in 2019, Casablanca have done well to finish as the runners up to Rabat in the Moroccan Women’s Championship last season, their best performance in the domestic league.
The club is nothing like Rabat, who boast national team stars, but their rise to the top has been impressive. They gained promotion to the Championship just two years after inception and finished in third place in their maiden season (2021/22) in the big time.
The Champions League final is a new high for them and they will fancy their chances of winning it, having lost 1-0 to Sundowns in the group stages.
“They are a very good side and tactically they are very disciplined,” Tshabalala said.
“When they played against us in the group stages, they played a different ball game in the way that they’ve applied a low block. But when we watched their semifinal match, they played against a team from Ghana, and they played an open game.
“So, this team is very disciplined, and they can play and adapt to any system at any given time.
“I’m glad that we have managed to see their low block and also their open play. We have got everything that we wanted to know about them,” he said before speculating about what it would take for them to win.
“Honestly speaking, we will need discipline from the girls and not taking them (Casablanca) for granted just because we played them in the group stages, and we won.
“I’m hoping that complacency is not going to creep into the players. Also, from our side as the technical team, I think we just need to remind the girls that it’s going to be a new ball game.
“A high level of tactical discipline and dedication from the girls is what it’s going to take. We want to make history and be the first team to win it two times.”
Meanwhile, streaming platform Netflix will air a documentary on the Sundowns ladies and their quest to win the inaugural Caf Women’s Champions League in 2021, the club has said.
The documentary is titled Banyana ba Style and will be available for streaming from Wednesday.