CAF Champions League: CS Sfaxien, Kaizer Chiefs advance to next qualifying round

The latest round of matches in the CAF Champions League preliminary first round on Saturday astonishingly saw nearly all the home teams advance to the next round.

2006 runners-up CS Sfaxien of Tunisia beat 10-man Mlandege of Zanzibar 3-1 to progress with an emphatic 8-1 aggregate score. Firas Chaouat and Kingsley Eduwo scored the winning goals after Sabri Mzee’s penalty had cancelled out Chris Kouakou’s opening goal.

A late equaliser by Yano earned Petro Atletico (Angola) a 2-2 draw at home to Akonangui F.C. of Equatorial Guinea. The Angolans, despite winning the first leg 1-0 away from home, were heading out of the competition on the away goals rule. However, that strike was enough to see them through 3-2 on aggregate.

Tanzanian giants Simba and South Africa’s Kaizer Chiefs secured 0-0 draws at home to Nigeria’s Plateau United and Cameroon’s Bamenda respectively to both go through 1-0 on aggregate. Nkana F.C. of Zambia also registered a similar result against Bantu of Lesotho advancing on a similar aggregate score.

Stade Malien of Mali went through 5-1 on aggregate with a 3-0 win against Ashanti GB of Guinea. Meanwhile, Platinum F.C. of Zimbabwe and Bouenguidi of Gabon defeated Costa do Sol of Mozambique and Forest Rangers of Zambia 2-0 respectively for 4-1 and 2-0 aggregate wins.

The sole victory by an away side on the day was a 2-0 win by Niger’s SONIDEP against Mogadishu City of Somalia. A goal each by Yahaya Murtala and Ibrahim Mukhtar completed a 4-0 aggregate win over the Somalis.

Another set of matches in the first preliminary round are due to be played on December 6 featuring two-time winners Enyimba F.C. (Nigeria) and Asante Kotoko (Ghana).