Mamelodi Sundowns welcomed Wydad Casablanca to the Lucas Moripe Stadium where they will do battle on Saturday, 1 February 2020.
With both teams looking to secure top spot, Coach Pitso Mosimane and Wydad Coach Sebastien Desabre exchanged pleasantries before knuckling down to the task at hand.
The Brazilians will be looking for nothing less than a win or a draw to make sure they remain at the top of their group and are expecting the Masandawana faithful to come in numbers and paint Lucas Moripe yellow.
Mosimane, who in the week issued a rallying call via social media for South Africans to unite under the Sundowns badge, encouraged supporters and the nation again to come together as one on Saturday;
“Sport unites people and our ex-president (Mandela) always emphasised that. Sport brings people together. Football unites nations, it doesn’t care where you are from, what race you are, if you’re from a rich background, poor background, it doesn’t care.”
Saturday’s clash has all the ingredients of a mouth watering clash between two icons of African football. Wydad have over the years become regular CAF Champions League opponents for Downs, having faced each other nine times in the past three years. The Moroccans have never won on South African soil but Mosimane was quick to dispel any advantage there;
“We have also never won away at Wydad so it’s the same, we can’t get emotional about that. What I was happy about when we went to Morocco, is that we scored so it’s an improvement and now we are thinking we can score one or two.”
When asked about the conditions on the day, and more specifically the 15H00 kick off time, Mosimane added;
“Football is played at all times, different times, you can’t change what nature does. Wherever you go the weather changes, we play in the freezing cold then go to Angola and play in the heat. We tried to train later to avoid the heat but it doesn’t help.”
“When we played at 2pm in Angola I saw my team play slowly, it’s the heat but we adjusted and managed to score 2 goals and get a draw. The weather here at home isn’t easy either but we adjust and train for these things.”
What is clear is that both teams will be going all out to secure top spot in group C, and supporters are encouraged to get to the Lucas Moripe Stadium with broadcasting limited to Facebook streaming.
Let’s do this yellow nation
All the best to the team.An African Derby indeed!! Just give it your best, we are prepared to sing and dance for the team.
Kabo Yello
Let’s go ND paint Lucas Moripe stadium yellow
We’re behind Masandawana?✌️
Let’s wrap it up with a thrilling win. #YellowNation
Let’s go masandawana this is a chance to collecte another cup
My question is that why all African games not broadcast on dstv or sabc. Ist because chiefs and pirates are not playing is nor fair on us
Your argument of chiefs and pirates is unfounded. The champions league has always been broadcast even when chiefs or pirates have not been there. Even Bafana games have had issues before. It’s whether Supersport has rights or not. And it’s not a simple to get the rights. At some point Supersport had to buy the rights from some French company.