Sundowns’ final opponents AS FAR have pedigree and are riding the Moroccan wave

AS FAR have history and pedigree as one of Morocco’s top three football clubs and will provide a stern test for Mamelodi Sundowns in the 2025-26 Caf Champions League final.

That goes without saying, to some extent. Any side that reaches a Champions League final has earned its stripes for that season and usually boasts decades of generational trophy-gathering experience, expertise and confidence.

FAR are no different, though they are yet to reach the heights of Casablanca giants Wydad and Raja in interclub competition, which will make them hungry in this year’s May 15 and 24 two-legged final to add to their continental pedigree.

AS Far, also known as FAR Rabat, are, fully titled, Association Sportive des Forces Armées Royales. Founded by the Moroccan royal family and with the club president usually a high-ranking military official, FAR links the two institutions.

The 67-year-old club was established on September 1 1958, three years after Morocco’s independence, which ended a period of the French and Spanish protectorates. They took part in the Botola from the 1959-60 season, ending second in that campaign.

Morocco’s Botola Pro league has produced the second-most winners of the Champions League with seven trophies, behind the Egyptian Premier League, which is by far ahead with 18.

FAR won the Champions League’s predecessor, the African Cup of Champions Clubs, for Morocco in 1985 for their only title in the competition. They have also won one Caf Confederation Cup — in 2005.

Raja Casablanca were strong in the Champions Cup in the 1990s, with wins in 1989, 1997 and 1999. Wydad Athletic rivalled Egyptian giants Al Ahly for supremacy in the late 2010s and early 2020s, adding to their 1992 title with victories in 2017 and 2022, a period when they were also runners-up twice.

FAR are the third-largest of Morocco’s ‘big three’. On an all-time table for the last 14 seasons, since 2011, of the Botola before the present campaign, they are third with 682 points to Raja’s 760 and Wydad’s 786. Wydad have 219 victories and a 52.14% win rate, Raja 209 and 49.76% and FAR 182 and 43.33%.

Wydad have won Morocco’s top flight 22 times and Raja and FAR 13 apiece. The next highest are MAS Fes and now lower-league Kénitra AC with four. Wydad, Raja and FAR are the three clubs that have never been relegated since the FAR’s inception in 1958.

Wydad’s financial troubles from overspending on recent success sees them in a recovery phase. FAR (2022-23), Raja (going unbeaten in the season to accumulate 72 points in 2023-24, with FAR a point adrift on 71, with three defeats) and RS Berkane, with their lone league title in 2024-25, have shared the Botola while Wydad have floundered.

Sundowns will be aware, in assessing FAR’s strength, that Moroccan football is on an all-time high after its national team became the first African World Cup semifinalists in Qatar in 2022. Moroccan clubs have dominated interclub finals for a decade — apart from Wydad’s presence in the Champions League, there has been a Botola team in seven of the last eight Confed finals.

Hosts Morocco lost the final of the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations — a competition it has struggled to produce another title in since its lone 1976 triumph — though that result was overturned by the Confederation of African Football’s (Caf) appeals board due to Senegal’s 15-minute walk-off in a controversial last game in Rabat in January.

That decision seems likely to be overturned again on appeal by Senegal at the Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sport, but has still raised questions about Morocco’s seeming hold of influence on Caf, with the country’s apparently inordinate number of tournaments it wins the hosting rights for also lifting eyebrows.

This season’s other Champions League semifinal to Downs’ 2-0 aggregate win (1-0 away and home) over Espérance Tunis was an all-Moroccan affair, FAR beating Berkane 2-1 (2-0 at home and 0-1 away).

In FAR’s present incarnation, 49-year-old Portuguese coach Alexandre Santos — a three-time successive Angolan league winner with Petro Luanda (2022 to 2024), who also steered Rabat to Botola runners-up to Berkane last season — has built a tough combination. His side harnesses classic Moroccan defensive structure with efficient attacking, deadly finishing and physical power.

The former assistant to recent Nigeria coach José Peseiro at clubs such as Braga, Porto and teams in Arab football has plenty of star quality at FAR. Goalkeeper Ahmed Reda Tagnaouti has an 84.6% save percentage and kept four clean sheets in FAR’s run to the Champions League final.

Centreback Marouane Louadni is the defensive anchor. Midfielder Mohamed Rabie is the heartbeat in midfield and played a starring role in the win over Berkane. Winger Youssef El Fahli provides FAR’s leading offensive threat with nine goal contributions across all competitions this season. Winger Reda Slim is a destructive attacker.

As with almost every Champions League final, the winner will be decided in vice-tight conditions by the smallest of margins of error and endeavour.

Is FAR a stronger combination than last season’s Pyramids FC, who edged Downs 3-2 on aggregate in the 2024-25 final? That ambitious, excellently drilled Egyptian combination harnessed Burkinabè midfielder Ibrahim Touré for midfield physical control and creativity and Democratic Republic of the Congo striker Fiston Mayele for explosiveness upfront, arguably providing the difference between the two finalists. FAR do not seem to have two such star players to the same extent, but are more of a team.

And Sundowns seem stronger than last season. Colombian striker Brayan León, scorer of both goals in the semifinal, arrived in January and provides a ‘Mayele effect’, while Ronwen Williams, Keanu Cupido, Khuliso Mudau, Teboho Mokoena and Jayden Adams have hit form at the right time.

Perhaps, just perhaps, this is Downs’ season to add the second star on the badge to the one earned in 2016.