It will be a battle between the West vs the South when Mamelodi Sundowns travel to Nigeria to take on Remo Stars in the CAF Champions League second preliminary round. The first leg of this battle begins away from home for Downs, on Sunday afternoon at the M.K.O Abiola International Stadium in Nigeria.
While this will be Remo Stars’ third fixture in this campaign’s Champions League, Bafana Ba Style will be beginning their 2025/26 CAFCL journey. To qualify for the second preliminary round of the competition, Remo Stars had to go over two hurdles in a form of a two-legged first preliminary round, which they won 5-0 on aggregate in September. Speaking to Defender, Thapelo Morena, ahead of the game, he said he anticipates a tough opponent and a tough atmosphere to play in. He, however, stated that his side will be confident to get a positive result.
“Remo Stars won the first preliminary round to qualify and they were pitted against us. Obviously they will be expecting a lot from us. We expect the atmosphere to be crazy. The match started the moment we landed in Nigeria and we will have to put our heads into the game.”
“They obviously want the upper hand and their supporters will help them. They also postponed two of their games which is evidence of the magnitude of this fixture. We will have to focus on doing the business that we know which is in the field. We will definitely do our best to come back with three points before we host them in the second leg,” he continued.
Before this fixture, the Nigerian side had domestic league duties to fulfil, to which they registered a loss. Morena said that result for the Brazilians, will count for nothing. He, however, admits that they will use that result to turn things around and force a victory out of their visitors.
“Losing their last game will not count for anything. They will want to forget that game and they will want to do that by winning their match against us. For us, on the other hand, this will help us in looking into their strengths and weaknesses and how we can use them to our advantage. We are looking forward to this game and starting this season’s CAFCL campaign.”
Mamelodi Sundowns will do clash against Remo Stars on Sunday afternoon at the M.K.O Abiola International Stadium. Kick-off has been scheduled for 17H00, live on SABC Sport and SuperSport TV.
