JOHANNESBURG - A lot has changed since the last time TP Mazembe swaggered into the country two years ago en-route to becoming five-time African champions.
The Mamelodi Sundowns team they faced then in the first round of the CAF Champions League were still finding their feet on the continent under Pitso Mosimane.
Two years later, the Brazilians are African champions and CAF’s Team of the Year, while Mosimane is the continent’s Coach of the Year and goalkeeper Denis Onyango the Africa-based Footballer of the Year.
Mazembe, on the other hand, have lost three players - Merveille Bope Bokadi, Jonathan Bolingi and Christian Luyindama - to Belgium side Standard Liege. Their new coach, Thierry Froger, who
replaced Hubert Velud, will be watching from the stands before taking charge of the Democratic Republic of Congo side until the end of the year.
These two teams are in a transition, with Sundowns graduating to being a force on the continent that can hold their own against the big boys, while Mazembe are trying to pick themselves up as they have been hit by political upheaval in DRC that saw their owner go into exile.
It’s the Brazilians who’ll swagger at Loftus Versfeld
on Saturday (7pm) for the CAF Super Cup that pits last year’s Champions League winners against the CAF Confederation Cup champions.
Sundowns tried to organise a friendly with Mazembe’s
rivals AS Vita to prepare for this clash.
“It’s unbelievable, they
refused,” Mosimane said.
“I even went to them and said, ‘guys, it’s a friendly game behind closed doors because I am preparing for Mazembe’. If I play AS Vita, it’s a proper game because they beat Mazembe in Kinshasa. Mazembe know that Kinshasa is a no-go area. But they refused.
“I went there and begged. I said any time. But they said we don’t want to play you, we will play anyone in South Africa but you.”
Vita haven’t forgotten how they were eliminated in the Champions League last year after they beat Sundowns in the second round by an away goal to reach the group stage.
Vita were kicked out of the last eight for fielding a suspended player and Sundowns took their place. The Brazilians went all the way to be crowned African champions. But they can’t shake off the tag that they achieved that via the back door.
“You can’t be called a back-door team if you put in a credible performance in Japan (at the Fifa Club World Cup),” Mosimane retaliated.
“You can’t be called a back-door team when you beat Zamalek three times. What is that? We earned this. How many South African teams can play in front of 75 000 fans in Egypt and get the result?”
That result in front of a packed Borg El-Arab Stadium in Alexandria earned Sundowns their first continental title and a place in the Super Cup as the home team.
Despite all that success, Mosimane knows they still have a long way to go before they are on the level of African giants like Mazembe.
“They have won the Champions League five times, we just have one star (on our jerseys),” Mosimane said.
“I was looking at Al-Ahly, they have eight stars. But when I saw that they were founded in 1907, I thought that we have done well for ourselves.
“Remember we didn’t play international football because of the isolation during apartheid.
“We can come up with good excuses why we are still catching up with the rest of the continent but there will be no excuses in this match. This game is about history, records and a legacy. It’s at home, so we can’t ask for more. This cup isn’t just for Sundowns but for South Africa.”