By Velile Mnyandu
Egyptian giants Al Ahly are believed to have chosen the Kaizer Chiefs village as their training base for the next two days as they build up to their crunch CAF Champions League Group A game against log leaders Mamelodi Sundowns at the FNB stadium on Saturday.
Ahly, who won 3-0 last night in a top of the table clash against now second-placed Pyramids FC in an Egyptian Premier League game, are scheduled to land in South Africa this morning and are expected to have a light training session at the Amakhosi base in Naturena later this afternoon, iDiski Times has established.
Tournament rules allow for the teams to have access to the match venue on match day minus one, which is the day before the game. If a team arrives in the country earlier than that, they are expected to make their own arrangements for the training venues and all.
Using facilities of fellow professional teams is not something new in African football, as part of sportsmanship and good relations, Chiefs also used the training base of Raja Casablanca in the lead up to the semi-final and the final of the CAF Champions League last year in Morocco.
With the game taking place at the Chiefs’ home venue FNB stadium, which is just a stone throw away from their base at Taung Village, which boasts some state of the art facilities including a High Performance Centre, it was a no brainer for the Red Devils and Amakhosi to to agree on this. The two teams had also faced each other in the CAFCL final last year, with Mosimane’s side beating his favourite childhood club 3-0 to clinch the 10th star.
This is going to be a second Group A meeting between the two teams after the Brazilians had beaten the defending champions 1-0 in Cairo, a historic win for them against the Red Devils as it was for the first time they had managed to achieve this in Egypt against the African club of the century.
Ahly are second on the log with four points, three points adrift of Sundowns, a team that Mosimane coached for eight years, won 11 trophies with them to become their most successful coach ever, including winning a CAFCL title, and a record five league titles and a couple of knockout trophies.
