Sundowns to send scouts to Cameroon to get crucial intel on Coton Sport

Mamelodi Sundowns are planning to send scouts to Cameroon to source more information on one of their Caf Champions League opponents, Coton Sport FC.

Sundowns have been drawn in Group B alongside Coton Sport and familiar foes in Egyptian giants Al Ahly and Al-Hilal of Sudan.

Coton Sport are largely a closed book to Masandawana, while the other two clubs will be notably familiar to the Pretoria team as both were also in their group in the 2021-22 Champions League.

Sundowns coach Rulani Mokwena revealed they have already started gathering information on the Cameroonians in a bid to avoid surprises when the teams meet in the first leg in West Africa in mid-February.  

“We’ve already got our analysts working on that,” Mokwena said. “They are trying to download games, research and get information about them.

“We will get [their] fixtures and we will try to get more recent information on them and get people to travel and go and watch them. This will give us enough information for our preparations.

“We know they’ve got a very competitive team and that their most prolific player — Kamilou Daouda, who is a striker — is from Niger.”

Last season Sundowns made it through the group stages undefeated, completing a historic double over Ahly, beating the team then coached by Pitso Mosimane 1-0 home and away. Downs also beat Al-Hilal home and away.

However, both those clubs have gone through coaching changes and will be determined to get their revenge over Mokwena’s charges.

Sundowns have also had changes to their technical staff. The last time Ahly and Al-Hilal met the Brazilians Mokwena was the co-coach alongside Manqoba Mngqithi, who has since been demoted to senior coach. Mokwena is now the sole head coach.

“There are huge resemblances with regards to familiarities from 2021 in the group that we had,” Mokwena said.

“We had a very interesting trip to Sudan [in 2021-22], which we again anticipate for this season, from a difficult team in Al-Hilal with some very good players that we are familiar with like Gerald Phiri junior.”

Sundowns kick off their group stage campaign at home against Al-Hilal on February 10 or 11.

The Chloorkop-based outfit are chasing their second Champions League title to add to their success under Mosimane in 2016.

Since then, their best performance in the competition was reaching the semifinals in the 2018-19 season.

Their last three attempts have ended in the quarterfinals, which would be seen as unsatisfactory according to the standards of the club’s ambitious ownership and management.