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South Africa: Close, But No Cigar, for the Gallant Brazilians
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Business Day (Johannesburg)
12 May 2008
Posted to the web 12 May 2008
Mninawa Ntloko
Pretoria
They were on the edge of their seats as Mamelodi Sundowns tried to beat the odds to stay in the African Champions League yesterday afternoon.
Sundowns needed to score two clear goals at Atteridgeville's Super Stadium to reverse the 4-2 defeat at the hands of Al-Hilal in the first leg of this Champions League game in Sudan two weeks ago.
The damage Al-Hilal had inflicted in the first leg got the visitors into the lucrative group stages of Africa's premier club competition, despite losing yesterday.
The Sundowns' evergreen Bafana Bafana star Surprise Moriri scored the only goal of the match yesterday, allowing the home team to exit the tournament with dignity intact.
The solitary strike -- a few minutes into the second half -- only heightened the tension in the stadium as the home crowd desperately encouraged the Sundowns players to score the elusive goal.
Acutely aware that a second goal would have enabled the Brazilians to advance to the group stages, the 8000-strong crowd could hardly sit still as they screamed themselves hoarse from the stands.
Sundowns piled on the pressure in search of the priceless strike, but Al-Hilal goalkeeper Elmuz Mahgoub Abdalla somehow managed to keep the home side at bay.
Abdalla did whatever he could to ensure Downs did not score that second goal and there were times when he resorted to underhand tactics to achieve the objective.
On occasion he feigned injury to wind down the clock, incurring the wrath of the crowd when he took his time returning the ball into play.
The irate crowd screamed to the match officials to take action at the blatant time wasting and he was eventually cautioned late in the game.
Downs continued to pile on the pressure but during their many excursions to the opposite end of the pitch, they left Brian Baloyi's goal exposed to the counterattack.
Indeed, the Brazilians could have been punished had Saif Eldin du Farah displayed greater composure in front of the goal.
Farah faced Baloyi in several one-on-one situations but when it seemed he would finally punish the home side, he somehow contrived to miss.
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Downs captain Michael Manzini's rearguard seemed to come apart at the seams each time the visitors ventured up front and had Al-Hilal not adopted a conservative approach in the opening stages of this encounter, they could have given the home side many problems.
Goal scorer Moriri collapsed on the stadium turf when the Eritrean referee blew the final whistle to signal the end of the game.
He had worked his socks off throughout the game and was understandably disappointed the Brazilians had come so agonisingly close and failed.
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