Mamelodi Sundowns will chase a second successive win in Group B of the CAF Champions League when they face hosts CR Belouizdad in neutral Tanzania on Sunday afternoon.
Kick-off at the National Stadium in Dar es Salaam is set for 3pm CAT (SA, GMT+2).
This match was originally scheduled to take place on Tuesday, 23 February in Algeria, but travel difficulties relating to the strain of Covid-19 prevalent in South Africa prevented Sundowns from travelling.
The Confederation of African Football stepped in and forced Belouizdad to host the match at a neutral venue in order to prevent fixture backlog – and they did the same for Wydad Casablanca’s postponed clash against Kaizer Chiefs.
The Algiers-based team come into the clash on the back of a promising 0-0 draw away to the DR Congo giants, with coach Franck Dumas seeing it as a decent start to the group-stage campaign but knowing that a lot of work lies ahead of them.
“The team showed its character and spirit to achieve a draw in Lubumbashi, a very difficult place for away teams,” said Dumas. “Now we have the challenge of Sundowns, a very strong side with a good history in this competition. We will need to prepare well.”
Sundowns, meanwhile, opened their Group B campaign with a fine 2-0 home win over Al Merrikh of Sudan. Mosa Lebusa and Kermit Erasmus scored the goals, though the Brazilians really should have racked up a bigger scoreline, such was their dominance.
The shuffling around of fixtures has made preparation difficult for the South African champions, something co-coach Rhulani Mokwena has been more than willing to admit.
“It puts a spanner in the works, the reality is that everyone wants to work in a way where everything is pre-planned and then we can navigate our way through the programme that has been sent, particularly because we are quite big on our periodisation,” he explained.
Mokwena added, “We just have to work towards allowing ourselves enough time to improve the team, we know that we have a lot of things to improve, our schemes need to improve, our performances need to get better.”
In head-to-head terms, this will be the first meeting of Belouizdad and Sundowns. Malian referee Boubou Traore will take charge of the match in Dar es Salaam on Sunday.
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