Mamelodi Sundowns will load up further kilometres on their mileage as they pack up again for the trip to the south-eastern Congolese city of Lubumbashi.
Sundowns play TP Mazembe in their second CAF Champions League group match on Saturday afternoon at the Stade du TP Mazembe.
The Brazilians are treating Mazembe with no kid gloves considering the kind of hostile environment that stands to greet them in Lubumbashi.
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Travels:
A direct return flight from Johannesburg to Lubumbashi travels for five hours covering 3300km.
The Brazilians have already done the longer trips to Casablanca (Morocco) and Cairo (Egypt) and travelled to Luanda (Angola) during their African Football League campaign.
There are no direct flights from Johannesburg to Casablanca which means connecting via several cities which include Cairo, Nairobi, Jeddah, or Paris amongst others while Cairo and Luanda can be done on a nonstop flight.
Then in the Champions League they went to Dar es Salaam to face Burundian champions Bumamuru.
Travel time on all these trips has clocked approximately 65 hours airborne while covering distances in the region of 42 000km.
Luanda has a return flight time of seven hours with distance of 7000km.
Cairo is 16,5 hours return on a direct flight that will have done 13000km by the time it touches at OR Tambo again.
Casablanca is the most complicated and is 30 hours return on the shortest option which covers 15000km while Dar es Salaam is 6,5 hours return on with distance of 5000km.
Worth noting with air travel are the time-consuming logistics prior to boarding and upon landing especially on international flights.
Locally, The Brazilians have been to Polokwane, Gqeberha, Durban, Polokwane again, two trips to Johannesburg south, Durban again, Mbombela, and the short bus ride to Atteridgeville on Wednesday night.
After this weekend, Sundowns must still travel to Durban to play AmaZulu (December 6), Cairo to play Pyramids (December 19), and Cape Town City away (December 24) which means they will have up to 60 000km at the end of the year.
Player usage:
With this kind of demanding fixture schedule, Mokwena has boxed cleverly keeping Themba Zwane and Teboho Mokoena on the bench for the last two games against FC Nouadhibou and SuperSport United.
On Wednesday, Khuliso Mudau and Grant Kekana were also on the bench while Marcelo Allende was suspended with Rivaldo Coetzee, Aubrey Modiba, Bongani Zungu, and Mothobi Mvala all not in the match day squad.
Ronwen Williams has been Mokwena's most frequently used player with 20 appearances and 1830 minutes to his name only missing games when he has been rested.
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Williams already has 15 clean sheets and has not conceded more than two goals in each of the competitions that he has played.
Allende, Mokoena, Zwane, Modiba, Mvala, Kekana, Mudau, and Ribeiro Costa make up the list of the other players that have reached 1000 minutes this season.