While some argue that Mamelodi Sundowns and Al Ahly's dominance on the continent indicates a deteriorating level of African football, KickOff's Junaid Benjamin believes these two clubs' superiority indicates the complete opposite.
The pair have already booked their spots in the quarter-finals of the 2023/24 CAF Champions League, with one group-stage match still left to play, and both teams will have their eyes on adding more silverware to their trophy cabinets. Masandawana will be boosted by their African Football League triumph in November last year, while the Red Devils will be looking to defend their status as reigning champions of the CAF CL.
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The way the picture is currently painted, these two mammoths of African football are setting the standard – an example that other teams on the continent will benefit greatly from. It does seem like the gap is widening, but it represents an increase in the level of performance. On the other side of the coin, one could argue that football on the continent is deteriorating.
In fact, a former winner of the competition, Khaled El-Ghandour, recently praised the Brazilians and Al Ahly as the two strongest teams on the continent, but also, strangely, went on to say that "I believe the CAF Champions League has become a weak tournament". His statement, however, is very hard to agree with.
"It is a shame to say that Al Ahly defeated Medeama [last Friday] and consider this an achievement," he continued. We are talking about players from the Egyptian national team. You have all the elements and capabilities to be the best team. Winning any match is normal and not an achievement."
First, while his mentality and his demand for nothing but success is admirable and exemplary, you cannot just set aside the importance of a victory, and a hard-fought one at that. The fact that the Egyptians won by just one goal in what was more or less an equal contest against a side who are bottom of Group D shows some strong competition, which also contradicts El-Ghandour's statement about the tournament being weak.
Secondly, he makes reference to the fact that the majority of the Egypt national team's regulars play their football at Al Ahly, referring to the same Egyptian team that drew so much criticism for their 2023 Africa Cup of Nations campaign, in which they managed to accumulate just three points in three matches before being knocked out by DR Congo. While that may be due to other factors, the Sundowns players who represented Bafana played an important role in the team's run to the semi-final, beating the likes of Morocco, who boast top players such Paris Saint-Germain's Achraf Hakimi.
This gives us an insight into where, more or less, the level of Sundowns is, based on the fact that they made up the majority of Bafana's most used starting XI. Despite this, their road to the CAF CL quarter-finals was not as easy as one might have been led to believe. They are yet to secure top spot in Group A, with TP Mazembe standing in their way. The Congolese club are in second place in the group but level on points with their South African rivals, with the two sides set to clash on matchday six. Mazembe will, however, be going into the encounter with the advantage of knowing they beat Rulani Mokwena's men 1-0 when the sides met earlier in the group stage.
The 11-time CAF CL champions, meanwhile, also did relatively well at an international level recently, in the FIFA Club World Cup. The Red Devils beat Saudi Arabia's star-studded Al Ittihad 3-1 before losing to Brazilian giants Fluminense 2-0 in the semi-finals. They went on to secure third place, though, after beating Japan's Urawa Reds 4-2. With that in mind, for the reigning CAF CL champions to celebrate a hard-fought 1-0 victory over a fellow African team would suggest that the tournament has not become a weak one!
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