Written by Mohamed Salem
Esperance player Jacques Diarra spoke TunisianHe spoke about his team's upcoming match against South Africa's Mamelodi Sundowns in the second leg of the 2025-2026 CAF Champions League semi-final, which is scheduled to be held at Loftus Versfeld Stadium in South Africa.
Jacques Diarra, in comments reported by South African network idiskitimes, said: "It's a football match. They beat us on our home ground, but we must remember that we managed to beat them." Al Ahly Away from home, so I think it is possible that we can do it again and beat Sundowns here in Pretoria.
Regarding Sundowns going into the second leg with the advantage of winning the first leg, Diarra said: No, do you think Sundowns are better than us? They have their way of doing things, and we have our own way. They are not more experienced than us, I don't think so.
Sundowns' victory over Esperance
Sundowns managed to win the first leg with a 1-0 victory, in the match that took place at the Rades stadium, the home ground of the Tunisian team, thus entering the second leg with a slight advantage.
Esperance of Tunisia will be hosted by South Africa’s Mamelodi Sundowns at 3 pm on Saturday, in the second leg of the CAF Champions League semi-finals.
CAF Champions League semi-final
It is worth noting that Esperance of Tunisia qualified for the semi-finals of the African Champions League, after defeating Al-Ahly of Egypt in the first and second legs, with scores of 1-0 and 3-1, thus eliminating the Red Giant from the quarter-finals of the Champions League.
The Tunisian side needs to score at least one goal in Pretoria to keep their qualification hopes alive, as the match would then be heading towards a draw and penalty kicks would decide the qualifying team.
As for Sundowns, a draw is all they need to advance in the tournament, the most important and strongest club competition in Africa, which they won once in 2016, and thus qualify for the final round for the fourth time in their history and the second time in a row.
Sundowns draws its motivation from its strong home record in knockout matches, while Esperance enters the match seeking to come back and advance to the final for the tenth time in its history, and the second time in the last three editions, as only Al-Ahly of Egypt, which reached the final on 17 occasions, surpasses it in the history of the tournament.
