Sundowns Ladies set to defend the CAF Champions League
After successfully defending the Hollywoodbets Super League (HWBSL) with three games to spare, Masandawana Ladies look forward to successfully defending the Champions League too.
The CAF Women’s inaugural champions Mamelodi Sundowns Ladies will begin their title defence on Monday against Bayelsa Queens FC at Grand Stade De Marrekech, Morocco.
The Brazilian ladies won the title last year to enter the Sundowns’ brand in the history books as the only club that has both men’s and women’s CAF championships in their trophy cabinet.
After successfully defending the Hollywoodbets Super League (HWBSL) with three games to spare, Masandawana Ladies look forward to successfully defending the Champions League too.
The team has been on a great run of form in the league winning nine straight matches.
Despite their superb form and ability to convert their chances, head coach Jerry Tshabalala said they won’t read too much into their form in the league because the level of completion is not the same.
He said the HWBSL can be deceiving in terms of the level of competition they’re going to find in Morocco.
“We don’t want to read too much into our previous results. We can only rely on how we apply ourselves and replicate how we create scoring chances for ourselves,” he said.
He said they don’t want to compare the two leagues to avoid the struggles they had last season.
“If you can recall last season, we battled to score goals in this competition because we thought that our performance from Hollywoodbets would be the same in the Champions League but that wasn’t the case,” he said.
He added that this year, they will prepare much better to make it a bit easy for themselves.
The champions were named CAF Women’s Club of the year in this year’s CAF Awards and Tshabalala said being named the club of the year adds more pressure to the team heading into the continental competition.
“The pressure will always be there. A big team like Sundowns, we have to face this situation where we feel pressured and we are expected to perform,” he said.
Sundowns Ladies Group B fixtures:
– Monday, October 31, Mamelodi Sundowns Ladies vs Bayelsa Queens FC
– Thursday ,November 3, Mamelodi Sundowns Ladies vs Wadi Degla FC
– Sunday, November 6, TP Mazembe vs Mamelodi Sundowns Ladies
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