Sundowns have a mountain to climb against Al Ahly in Cairo

A mountain to climb. 

This is the mammoth task awaiting Mamelodi Sundowns in the second leg of this Champions League semifinal tie against Al Ahly at the Cairo International Stadium on Friday where a winner must be produced.

On a day where they lacked conviction and control, Sundowns were held to a 0-0 draw by this pragmatic Al Ahly side who will have a slight advantage in the return leg at home. 

The winner will play against Orlando Pirates or Pyramids FC in the final. 

Sundowns were jittery and made uncharacteristic mistakes and because of their lack of fluidity they really never looked like scoring despite playing in front of their own crowd. 

They were solid at the back but it was on the attack where players like Lucas Ribeiro, Marcelo Allende, Jayden Adams, Peter Shalulile and substitutes Arthur Sales and Iqraam Rayners could not dominate. 

Things were desperate for Sundowns and coach Miguel Cardoso called on the prodigal son and influential captain Themba Zwane after 68 minutes to replace Adams but he could not influence the match. 

This was Zwane’s first match of the season after recovering from a career-threatening ACL injury he suffered during a 1-1 2025 Africa Cup of Nations qualifier draw between Bafana Bafana and Congo in Brazzaville last year. 

A lot was expected in this north versus south derby where Sundowns and Al Ahly have faced each other 16 times in all competitions but it turned out to be an uninspiring affair. 

Though there is still a lot of work to be done in the second leg, the Brazilians will take comfort in the fact that they remain unbeaten against the Egyptians in their last seven meetings. 

This run of seven unbeaten matches includes four wins and three draws since 2021. 

Over the past few years, where they were dominant under coach Pitso Mosimane and Rulani Mokwena, Sundowns pulled off some highly impressive wins over Al Ahly in Pretoria. 

The first was in 2019 when they recorded a 5-0 win at Lucas Moripe Stadium during the quarterfinal stage through goals from Themba Zwane, Wayne Arendse, Ricardo Nascimento, Gaston Sirino and Phakamani Mahlambi.

Two years ago, they thrashed Al Ahly 5-2 at Loftus in the group stages through goals by Marcelo Allende, Zwane, Teboho Mokoena and Peter Shalulile but it was not to be this time around. 

For this match, Cardoso dropped under-pressure defender Lucas Suarez from the starting line-up and replaced him with Mosa Lebusa to partner Grant Kekana at central defence. 

The first of four changes from the 2-1 Nedbank Cup semifinal defeat to Kaizer Chiefs last week was in defence with Aubrey Modiba replacing Divine Lunga at left-back. 

Khuliso Mudau kept his place at right-back with Ronwen Williams in goal. 

In the midfield, Mokoena, Allende and Ribeiro retained their places from the Amakhosi defeat and Bathusi Aubaas was replaced by Adams to provide the creative spark. 

To challenge the Al Ahly defence marshalled by Ramy Rabia and Yasser Elhaney, Cardoso went with Peter Shalulile while Tashreeq Matthews replaced Iqraam Rayners. 

The first real chance of the match went for Mokoena but a long-range shot from outside the box went over the crossbar of Mohamed El Shenawy. 

Al Ahly also had their moments on the attack with Nejc Gradišar and Emam Abdelghany but they could not find their way past the watertight Sundowns defence. 

Al Ahly nearly opened the scoring when their attacking move ended with Abdelghany delivering a cross to Gradišar whose header rebounded off the upright with Williams well beaten. 

It could have been worse for Sundowns if goals by attackers Abdelghany and Gradišar were not disallowed for offsides.