Reigning Ugandan league champions Sports Club Villa exited the 2024 TotalEnergies CAF Champions League at the first hurdle. This came after a 1-1 draw to Ethiopian side CBE in Addis Ababa. The Jogoos needed to win at Abebe Bikila Stadium by two clear goals,as they trailed 2-1 from the first leg at Namboole.
Suleiman Hamid put the Ethiopian champions ahead in the 64th minute to make Villa’s uphill task even steeper,but then Patrick Kakande converted a penalty for Villa fourteen minutes later.That was as good as it got for Villa,and the full time whistle meant failure to progress to the next round.
Villa won a historic record-extending seventeenth league title last season,after winning the sixteenth in 2004.This was therefore their first involvement in the CAF Champions League for twenty years.
The departure of head coach Dusan Stojanovic and losing influential captain Kenneth Ssemakula to Tunisia’s Club Africain undoubtedly weakened Villa.Meanwhile benefactor Hajji Omar Mandela is rumoured to be contemplating an exit barely two years after returning to the helm.All the above factors combined to ensure that preparation for this tie was far from ideal.
The Jogoos now have to go back to the drawing board to devise new strategies as they aim to retain their league title next season.
As for CBE,they will now face Tanzania’s Yanga,who pummeled Burundi’s Vital’O 6-0 to complete a 10-0 aggregate rout.
In other results,Morrocco’s Raja Casablanca thumped Niger’s AS Garde Nationale 5-0.Pyramids FC of Egypt set up a tie with Rwanda’s APR with a 3-1 triumph over Zanzibar’s JKU.APR,for their part,dispatched Tanzania’s Azam 2-0 to invert a 1-0 first leg deficit.
