CAF Champions League: the Kaizer Chiefs strike hard, Esperance badly embarked
Serbian striker Samir Nurkovic (right) in the Kaizer Chiefs jersey, February 29, 2020. AFP - PHILL MAGAKOE
Text by: Nicolas Bamba Follow
4 min
The first leg of the CAF Champions League quarter-finals were held on May 14-15, 2021. Kaizer Chiefs' South Africans made a strong impression by crushing Simba's Tanzanians to a final 4-0 score.
Esperance de Tunis lost on Chabab Belouizdad (2-0), while the title holders, the Egyptians of Al Ahly, dominated Mamelodi Sundowns by the same score.
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This Saturday, May 15, in Kigali, Rwanda, the CAF Executive Committee has set the venue for the
final of the African Champions League
.
It will be in Morocco that it will be played next July.
While waiting for this deadline, the quarter-finals first took place on Friday 14th and therefore Saturday 15th May.
The first Maghreb derby took place on Friday with the meeting between Mouloudia Alger and Wydad Casablanca.
Thanks to a cold-blooded penalty from Yahya Jabrane (66th), the Moroccans opened the scoring.
But the Algerians equalized at the end of the match by Miloud Rebiai (83rd), author of a reversed header.
Unmissable Nurkovic, Al Ahly confident
On Saturday, the hit of the day took place in South Africa, where the Kaizer Chiefs left Simba SC no chance.
On a corner extended by Samir Nurkovic, defender Eric Mathoho opened the scoring with a header (6th).
Then the same Nurkovic saw double.
The Serbian striker first broke with a head again (34th).
And with a powerful volley, he scored the goal of 3-0 (57th).
Finally, the Colombian Leonardo Castro ended the show with a fourth goal, the third from the head in this one-sided meeting (63rd).
Barring a cataclysm in the second leg in Tanzania, the Chiefs are already in the last four.
The other 100% Maghreb meeting saw Chabab Belouizdad win over Esperance de Tunis (2-0).
Faced with the quadruple African champions, the Algerians opened the scoring by Zakaria Draoui (34th), author of a powerful and precise recovery after a good job by Housseyn Selmi on the right side.
At the end of the meeting, Amir Sayoud gave more scope to the success of Chabab (82nd).
The latter thus takes alone the head of the ranking of the scorers of the competition (4 achievements).
Esperance lacked too much precision to hope for better.
Without a feat from goalie Moez Ben Cherifia in added time, she would have even suffered a heavier defeat.
The last first leg of the quarter-finals saw the Egyptians of Al Ahly tame the South Africans of Mamelodi Sundowns (2-0).
Taher Mohamed opened the scoring in the first period (23rd).
And in the last minutes, Salah Mohsen doubled the bet (89th), giving his team a more comfortable victory.
Last season, it was on this same score that the Red Devils had already beaten the Downs in the first leg and at the same stage of the competition.
They had gone until the final victory then.
Today's result is undoubtedly a good omen for them.
The second leg quarter-finals will take place on Saturday 22 May.
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