Orlando Pirates could win CAF Champions League 2012

Of all South African teams to participate in CAF champions league in the past 10 years, Pirates has got the easiest path in the draw that was made few days ago for next year’s Champions league tournament.

Here’s their path:Preliminary round: They are will fight it out with Clube Recreativo Desportivo do Libolo from Angola
First qualifying round: They will play with a Sunshine Stars of Nigeria
Second qualifying round: They will play a winner between Djoliba Athletic Club (Mali) and Lesotho Correctional Services (Lesotho)/Uganda Revenue Authority Sports Club (Uganda)
This is a much much “easier” draw for the Buccaneers; by “easier” I by no means mean that these matches will be walkovers but instead I compared these teams (Pirates opponents) with the ones Supersport United had to go through during the 3 years they participated in this tournament.
This year Matsatsantsa met Al Ahly in the first qualifying round, a year before that (2010) they faced the then on fire Heartland (Nigeria) in second round of qualifiers

Orlando Pirates could not have asked for a better draw than this, they only stand a possibility of meeting African club football heavyweights like the ones below in the group stages of this tournament:

- Esperance (Defending champions),
- Al Ahly (6 times CAF champions league champions and CAF club of the century),
- Etoile Sahel (2007 champions and 2004 & 2005 runners up),
- Al Hilal (3 times Champions league semi-finalists in the last 5 years),
- Al-Merreikh (2007 runners up),
- Raja Casablanca (3 times champions league winners),
- Coton Sport (2008 runner ups and 11 time Cameroonian league champions), and
- TP Mazembe (2010 champions & FIFA club world cup finalists)

Pirates has made it clear that they are going in this tournament to try by all means to win it and get their second golden star and judging by current crop of players in their books, their currect great run in cup competitions, the draw they got and the amount of silverware they have won in the past 2 years... CAF champions league & CAF confederations cup are the only 2 trophies not in their trophy cabinet and they have a shot at taking 1 of the 2.

I hereby declare that Pirates are 1 of the highly possible winners of this tournament. Their odds are 4/1... By yours truly

By Mokete Sethunya
http://twitter.com/moketesethunya