The CAF Champions League crown is a title all the continents football clubs dream of landing every year but it never comes easy.
Aside winning the continental trophy and its prize money, the chance of playing in the FIFA Club World Cup, a competition which draws all continental champions together has added much more drive to CAF’s tournament.
And when the CAF Champions League gets underway this weekend, Ghana’s Accra Hearts of Oak – the only Ghanaian side to have won the revised club competition – and AshantiGold would hope to produce a much improved form than their league performances when they play in separate away matches.
Hearts of Oak are one of the seven former winners who would try to land the CAF Champions League in the first leg of the first knockout round as the Phobians are away in Gabon.
The Phobians, winners of the tournament in 2000 play FC105 Libreville on Sunday.
Hearts, last season’s domestic champions, have struggled for form this season and their off pitch problems has been heightened with their failure to have some seven players added to the team roster before the CAF registration deadline.
However, stand-in coach Sampson Lamptey, himself a former player of the club is aware of the importance of the competition to the club and remains confident of their chances in Libreville.
A win away would boost their confidence for the return at the Ohene Djan Stadium in Accra in two weeks time.
AshantiGold, the country’s second representative also plays away from home with a game against Sahel SC of Niger in the first leg match of the second round of the competition.
The Miners, who have no continental title in their trophy room would need to pull a win to improve their chances after coming so close to the Champions League title when they lost in the finals of the first edition of the revised club tournament in 1997.
Since then, the Miners were out for the elite competition for a decade only to make a return to the same contest last year but failed to secure a place in the group stage of the tournament.
However, in Niamey, AshantiGold would be hoping to begin all over again with a good result first.
A win for the two sides over two legs would secure them places in the third round of the lucrative competition in April and May.