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Sundowns advance to Caf Champions League semifinals
Themba Zwane and Thapelo Morena were on target for Sundowns.
Thapelo Morena of Mamelodi Sundowns celebrates goal during the CAF Champions League 2022/23 match against CR Belouizdad at the Loftus Stadium, Pretoria on Saturday. (Muzi Ntombela/BackpagePix)
Mamelodi Sundowns beat CR Belouizdad 2-1 on Saturday afternoon at the Loftus Versfeld Stadium to advance to the last four of the Caf Champions League.
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The Brazilians advanced on a 6-2 aggregate, having beaten the Algerian side 4-1 in the first leg.
From the start of the game, Sundowns fans jokingly kept pointing at the Video Assistant Referee’s screen every time their team were fouled as the presence of the monitor got fans excited.
The man in the middle eventually consulted the screen after Chouaib Keddad collided with Peter Shalulile in the box. However, the man in the middle called VAR into action around the 20th minute and he ruled against Sundowns’ penalty protest.
The visitors then piled pressure on Sundowns and eventually got the opener in the 24th minute. It was their skipper, Sofiane Bouchar who rose high to head the ball past Ronwen Williams from a corner kick and the yellow sea at Loftus was silenced.
But it did not take long for Sundowns to roar back and it was captain fantastic Themba Zwane who drew the sides level on the verge of half-time.
Aubrey Modiba played a ball to Zwane, who was quick to release it to Thapelo Morena and surged into the box to receive the one-two from Morena and he dropped a shoulder before he passed the ball into the back of the net to score his 20th goal in the Champions League.
Nine minutes into the second stanza, Sundowns took charge of the game when Morena doubled up for the side. Zwane was the instigator of the attack with a slick pass over the top, where he found Khuliso Mudau on the right.
“Sailor” then played a cross into the box targeting Morena, and 18 tried his best to extinguish the danger.. However, his attempted clearance was deflected to Morena, who would not miss from close range.
Sundowns will meet rivals Wydad Casablanca in the semifinals and the two know each other very well as they have met a couple of times in the knockout rounds, with Wydad coming out on top every time. Meanwhile, Downs will resume domestic action this coming Wednesday against AmaZulu.
