The continent’s mother body created this secondary competition in 2004 by merging the Cup Winners’ Cup and the CAF Cup.
Pirates will tomorrow host Guinea club AS Kaloum in the second leg of a Play-Off contest, which will determine the team that moves into Group B of this year’s tournament.
The match is to be played at Bidvest Stadium (kick-off: 15h00).
Buoyed by a 2-0 lead from the first leg, which was played on May 15 in Mali due to the Ebola virus fears in Guinea, The Bucs are clear favourites to progress into the last-eight despite playing this fixture while domestic football is on sleep mode.
As Eric Tinkler plots ways to win his way into the hearts of The Ghost, twisting the neck to catch sight of the past shows that Santos and Mamelodi Sundowns are the only South African clubs to ever reach the stage that Pirates are aiming for now in the past 11 years that this competition has been played.
And if truth be told reaching the last-eight twice in just over a decade is not satisfactory for a country as proud and well-resourced as South Africa in football.
Santos, who have since fallen into the First Division, found their way into the group stages in the inaugural year of this competition in 2004.
Santos got past Mtibwa Sugar in the first round winning 3-0 away in East Africa before the Tanzanians failed to arrive for the return leg in Cape Town leading to The People’s Team being handed a walkover.
Then in the next round Boebie Solomons’s men accounted for King Faisal Babes of Ghana 3-2 on aggregate and then floored Canon Yaounde of Cameroon 3-1 in the Play-Off round to squeeze their way into Group B along with Hearts of Oak (Ghana), Coton Sport and Sable de Batie (both Cameroon).
Unfortunately Santos finished bottom in that group.
That same year (2004) Pirates were disqualified after they failed to arrive for their rescheduled Confederation Cup Play-Off return leg match against Sable in Batie, Cameroon. The Bucs had won 4-2 at home.
The following year Kaizer Chiefs reached the Play-Offs stage after falling from the Champions League but were then disqualified and banned for three years from playing CAF competitions after choosing to withdraw.
In 2007, Sundowns also found their way into the Confederation Cup group stages after winning their Play-Off contest against EGS Gafsa of Tunisia.
The Brazilians got into the Play-Offs after falling off from the Champions League of that same year.
However, in the group stages Gordon Igesund couldn’t find a way through in a pool that had TP Mazembe (DR Congo), SC Sfaxien (Tunisia) and Les Astres de Douala (Cameroon).
The following year Sundowns lost in the Play-Offs to Egyptian club Haras El-Hodood after again falling off from the Champions League.
Over the years SuperSport United have also failed in the Play-Offs (2010) just like Black Leopards who bravely marched into that final stage before the group stages but found Sudanese powerhouse El-Merreikh unyielding.
So it is now up to Pirates to reach the group stages of this competition – the first time that they will be doing so – and keep the interests of the country in continental club football alive.