Table of Contents
Pitso Mosimane won the CAF Champions League with Mamelodi Sundowns in 2016. He has won it twice more since then, with Al Ahly. He is, by any measure, the most accomplished African club football coach of his generation. When he speaks about Sundowns and about the continental game, the words carry weight that most observers cannot match. This week he used that weight twice: once to back the current Sundowns squad ahead of Saturday's second leg in Rabat, and once to call on CAF to abolish the away goals rule before it decides a final that could be settled by exactly that mechanism.
On the Current Sundowns Squad
Mosimane told iDiski Times that he believes the 2026 Sundowns squad is superior to the group he led to the title in 2016. "I won this thing with a team that does not compare to this current Sundowns one," he said, as reported by Goal South Africa. The statement carries a specific authority: he built the first iteration of Sundowns's continental ambition, created the infrastructure that the current coaching staff has built on, and is now observing the outcome from outside with the perspective of someone who has won three titles across two different clubs.
Cardoso has welcomed the public backing. "I didn't have ever the privilege to cross with him or to meet him, I would be very pleased obviously to have that chance, and I'm very thankful for his support because it means that he still has Sundowns in his heart," Cardoso told Foot Africa. The relationship between the coach who created the legacy and the coach now tasked with adding to it, conducted entirely through press conferences and media, is one of the more unusual dimensions of this final.
Mosimane also offered a note of caution alongside the praise. AS FAR's structural discipline, he said, will make the second leg in Rabat genuinely difficult. He did not pretend that a one-goal lead means the tie is settled. His read of the match, as someone who has been to Rabat and beaten and lost to North African sides in this competition, is that Sundowns will need to produce something in Morocco that they have not yet managed in this campaign: a goal on opposition territory in their final away match of the season.
On the Away Goals Rule
The second intervention is the more structurally significant one. According to the 2026 CAF Champions League final regulations, confirmed by Wikipedia's competition page, if the aggregate score is level after the second leg in Rabat, the away goals rule applies before extra time and penalties. That means a 1-1 aggregate scoreline would give AS FAR the title on away goals, since their potential goal in Rabat would count double.
Mosimane has called for CAF to follow UEFA's lead and abolish the rule entirely. UEFA eliminated away goals from their competitions in 2021-22, citing the distorting effect it has on tactical approaches, particularly for home sides in the first leg who become overly cautious when they have a lead rather than pressing for a second goal. "You know why I would like to scratch the away-goal rule: it means it opens the game," Mosimane said, as reported by Times Live. "So you can't say you're 1-0 up and now people are parking the bus and then you see the ball boys disappear, that's stupid."
His argument is directly applicable to Saturday. A Sundowns side protecting a 1-0 lead in Rabat faces an incentive structure that the away goals rule creates: conceding once turns a position of strength into one of immediate danger. A goal for AS FAR that makes it 1-1 on aggregate immediately means Sundowns need to score or face extra time and penalties while also knowing that another AS FAR goal clinches the title without any further need for a shootout. That asymmetry, Mosimane argues, distorts the football.
CAF has not responded to the renewed calls, and the rule remains in place for Saturday's final. Whether it becomes the deciding factor depends on whether the second leg in Rabat follows the first leg's script of narrow margins and a single goal making the difference. If it does, the rule that Mosimane and UEFA have both argued against will be at the centre of the most important African club match of the season.
