Here’s their path
Preliminary
round: They will fight it out with Clube Recreativo Desportivo do Libolo from
Angola
First
qualifying round: They will play with a Sunshine Stars of Nigeria
Second
qualifying round: They will play a winner between Djoliba Athletic Club (Mali)
and Lesotho Correctional Services (Lesotho) / Uganda Revenue Authority Sports
Club (Uganda)
This is a
much “easier” draw for the Buccaneers; by “easier” I by no means mean that
these matches will be walkovers but instead I compared these teams (Pirates
opponents) with the ones SuperSport United had to go through during the 3 years
they participated in this tournament.
In 2011
Matsatsantsa met Al Ahly in the first qualifying round, a year before that
(2010) they faced the then on fire Heartland (Nigeria) in second round of
qualifiers.
Orlando
Pirates could not have asked for a better draw than this, they only stand a possibility
of meeting African Club Football heavyweights like the ones below in the group
stages of this tournament:
- Esperance
(Defending champions),
- Al Ahly
(6 times CAF champions league champions and CAF club of the century),
- Etoile
Sahel (2007 champions and 2004 & 2005 runners up),
- Al Hilal
(3 times Champions league semi-finalists in the last 5 years),
-
Al-Merreikh (2007 runners up),
- Raja
Casablanca (3 times champions league winners),
- Coton
Sport (2008 runner ups and 11 time Cameroonian league champions), and
- TP
Mazembe (2010 champions & FIFA club world cup finalists) in the group
stages
Pirates has
made it clear that they are going in this tournament to try by all means to win
it and get their second golden star and judging by current crop of players in
their books, their current great run in cup competitions, the draw they got and
the amount of silverware they have won in the past 3 years... CAF Champions League
and CAF Confederations Cup are the only 2 trophies not in their trophy cabinet
and they have a shot at taking 1 of the 2.
I hereby
declare that Pirates are 1 of the highly possible winners of this tournament.
Their odds
are 4/1...
By Mokete Sethunya
