Orlando Pirates' trip to Algeria for the first leg of their CAF Champions League quarterfinal first leg will be painted with hostility upon their entrance at Stade du 5 Juillet.
Pirates will be the away team against Mouloudia Club d'Alger (MC Alger) on Tuesday (21:00) as the Champions League enters 'squeaky bum time'.
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The Algerian are out to create an unfriendly environment at the match venue for Pirates, who they have done extensive analysis work on in the last three weeks.
All the 50 000 tickets made for sale to the public on Wednesday were sold out the same day with security concerns the reason why only 80% of tickets of the stadium's capacity have been sold.
The match was initially scheduled for Ali La Ponte Stadium but was moved to the bigger facility in the same city.
KickOff.com contacts in Algiers have indicated how the hosts are aiming at making the fan factor count in unsettling Pirates.
MC Alger will come into the match sitting top of the domestic league but aware how different a challenge Pirates will be to the local teams.
They are unbeaten in 11 league matches and seven points ahead of Sead Ramovic's CR Belouizdad – the only team to have managed to beat them in the league this season.
Such has been the amount of work done by the Algerians on Pirates that they spread their analysis back to when the Soweto giants won against CRB in November during the group stage.
CAF has already confirmed that Sudanese referee Mahmoud Ali Mahmoud Ismael will handle the whistle for the first leg.
The first assistant will be another Sudanese, Mohammed Abdullah Ibrahim, while the other end will have Abdul Razzaq Ahmed from Djibouti for an all-Arabic-speaking nationals line-up.
That quarterfinal will be worth USD1,2 million (approx. R22 million) for the winners, which is the prizemoney on offer for reaching the semi-finals.
The last eight money is USD900 000 (R16,6 million), while the two teams reaching the final will get either USD2 million (approx. R37 million) for the runners-up and USD4 million (approx. R74 million) for the champions.
Bucs have won four, drawn three and lost only once against Algerian opposition throughout their history in CAF Inter Club competitions.
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They have met CRB, USM Alger, ES Setif, and JS Saoura.
Just like Jose Riveiro's troops, MC Alger have only been kings of the continent once before (1976).
They have veteran Tunisian coach Khaled Ben Yahia as head coach.
Pirates will travel over the weekend and will then host the return leg under floodlights at Orlando on April 9.