’Downs beat Al Ahly

Sundowns ......... 5

Al Ahly .............. 2

TSHWANE – While some Mamelodi Sundowns supporters were still walking into the Loftus Versfeld Stadium, Marcelo Allende had already put Sundowns in the lead as early as the 4th minute to begin the slaughter of Al Ahly.

Sundowns beat The Red Devils 5-2 to book their place in their knockout stages with two games to spare as they played in front of a capacity stadium in Pretoria yesterday. The Brazilians regained the lead of Group B as they now have 10 points ahead of Al-Hilal, who sit on nine points.

Ahmed Kendouci stole the ball from Ahmed Modiba and gave it to Mohamed Sherif, who had the easy task to fire past Ronwen Williams to get the equaliser for the visitors. However, Sundowns roared back with first half goals from captain Themba Zwane and Teboho Mokoena. Zwane showed why he is the mainstay in Downs’ attack after he showed his class and experience in the 24th minute.

A high ball into the box from Neo Maema found Mothobi Mvala, who headed it into the path of Zwane, and the 33-year-old had the option to pass it on to Peter Shalulile, but with possibility of the Namibian being offside, Zwane went for glory and restored Sundowns’ lead.

About 16 minutes later, Mokoena scored a goal worthy of winning any match. For Sundowns’ fourth goal, Maema was again at the architect as he led a counter attack and dazzled to lose his markers, before he threaded a ball to Shalulile.

Nine out of 10 times, Shalulile does not miss from that kind of position and he banged in to take the steam out of Al Ahly before he completed his brace in the dying moments of the game to earn himself the Man of the Match.