CAF Champions League draw does not favor Kaizer Chiefs

JOHANNESBURG – There was no luck for South Africa’s fallen giants Kaizer Chiefs when the CAF Champions League preliminary round draw was held in Cairo on Monday, when they were paired with Cameroonian team PWD Bamenda.

It promises to be a tough two-legged fight with the overall winners who will face 2018 semi-finalist Primeiro Agosto from Angola shortly thereafter for a place in the lucrative group stage.

Bamenda are rookies with a lot to prove, as no Cameroonian club has won the elite African club competition since a Canon Yaoundé team with stars like Thomas N’Kono and Theophile Abega lifted the trophy 40 years ago.

Then the best footballers of the Central African country played at home. Now those who show talent in adolescence are captured by European clubs, greatly weakening the domestic game.

If Bamenda has no Champions League pedigree, they will surely be a typical Cameroonian club, full of physique, skill, stubbornness in the face of adversity and oodles of national pride.

The Soweto-based Chiefs consider themselves one of the biggest clubs in Africa and when it comes to off-field activities like marketing, they have few equals.

But success has eluded the champions of 53 national competitions since he won the last of four South African Premiership titles five seasons ago with England-born coach Stuart Baxter.

To draw
2020/2021 #TotalCAFCL season all ready

This is how the teams will face off in the preliminary rounds of the tournaments. pic.twitter.com/Po18p6hxrQ

#TotalCAFCL (@CAF_Online) November 9, 2020

Since then they have hired local, Italian and German coaches, but 20 attempts to win a league or cup failed.

The Chiefs’ record in the Champions League would put a club of much less soccer power than South Africa to shame, as they have never reached the group stage in five appearances.

“Our performances in the Champions League have not been what one would expect from a club like Chiefs,” acknowledges the club’s founder, president and former star Kaizer Motaung.

HIGHER TRAVEL COSTS

A better draw for them would have been a draw against a club from a small neighboring southern African state, as going to Cameroon will not only be more challenging but will greatly increase travel costs.

The Chiefs fired German coach Ernst Middendorp after finishing runner-up in the league last season, having led 28 of the 30 rounds, and brought in Gavin Hunt.

Hunt is a no-nonsense handler, a former defender who seems like he would feel just as much at home training cadet soldiers in a parade plaza.

He won three consecutive league titles with SuperSport United and one with the now-disbanded Bidvest Wits, using seemingly less talented players than he now has at Chiefs.

But their results since the season began last month – two narrow wins, a goalless draw and three major defeats – have been disappointing.

There are mitigating factors, like injured top scorer Samir Nurkovic of Serbia, but rumors say he could soon be lured to the Middle East by higher salary offers.

A transfer ban until mid-2021 imposed on the club by FIFA for illegally signing Malagasy Arohasina ‘Dax’ Andrianarimanana hasn’t helped either, as Hunt clearly wants to strengthen his squad.

“It is what it is,” says the normally talkative coach with little to get excited about these days. Bamenda can only add to your discomfort.

The preliminary round matches are scheduled for November 27-29 and December 4-6, and those for the round of 16 phase on December 22-23 and January 5-6.

The 16 survivors from the two qualifying rounds enter a separate draw for the lucrative group stage, while the final 32 losers get a second chance at African glory by falling in the CAF Confederation Cup.