All eyes will be on former Mamelodi Sundowns winger Percy Tau, now with Al Ahly when his team takes on Orlando Pirates a CAF Champions League assignment on Saturday.
Last year in March, when he returned to Mzansi for a game against Sundowns, Tau scored in the 5-2 walloping the Brazilians administered to Al Ahly at Loftus Stadium. So, he clearly knows where the goalposts are located in SA stadiums and will have to be kept in check.
The highly anticipated Pirates-Al Ahly group-stage match will kick off at Orlando Stadium at 3pm.
Race on for top-two finish
After one round of matches, the teams are joint leaders of Group C, with the Egyptians top the table thanks to a better goal difference. The two top teams of the four-team groups qualify for a quarterfinal spot when the group stages are concluded early next year.
Bucs and Al Ahly won their opening matches 2-1 and 4-2 respectively, will be looking to cement their place at the top. Pirates nailed Algeria’s CR Belouizdad in front of their passionate supporters in Algiers where SA-born and former Cape Town City striker Khanyiso Mayo scored against the MTN8 champions.The victory that will go a long way in Bucs’ quest for a place in the last four.
Setting the pace
On the same day, the Egyptian champions hammered Ivory Coast’s Stade d’Abidjan 4-2 at the Cairo International Stadium, launching themselves as the pacesetters in the group with a better goal difference than the South Africans.
And just like Mayo did last week, Tau, who is experiencing uncertainty regarding his future at Al Ahly, will want to prove against his countrymen that he still has a lot to offer in his career. He knows a lot of the Pirates players with whom he plays in the Bafana squad.
Tau will want to do well
So, the nippy forward, who is the subject of a transfer move to Zamalek, could be the dangerman for Bucs, even though he has not been getting a lot of game time recently. Tau lack of game time has cost him a place in coach Hugo Broos’ Bafana team in recent months. So he should be motivated to do well.
He was left out of the last two Bafana camps in the run-in for Bafana’s qualification for the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations tournament.
Tau joined Al Ahly in the 2021/22 season when Pitso Mosimane roped him from his unsuccessful stints in the EPL with Brighton & Hove Albion and in the Belgian Pro League.
