ALGERIAN INVASION . . . USM Alger in for CAPS Utd date Mohamed Benyahia
Mohamed Benyahia

Mohamed Benyahia

Robson Sharuko Senior Sports Editor
THE second batch of the Algerian invasion force — a 45-member battalion that includes some of the best footballers plying their trade in Africa today — was set to land in Harare last night, setting the stage for a rare blockbuster midweek CAF Champions League showdown at the National Sports Stadium on Wednesday.

The first batch — an advance party sent to look at the hotels and decide where the Algerians will settle, take a look at the quality of the turf at the giant stadium and also spy on CAPS United — even travelled to Kariba to watch the Green Machine’s Premiership tie against ZPC Kariba and arrived in the country last week.

The advance party even measured the length of the grass at the giant stadium and sent the information back home for analysis by their technical staff for use in preparing for Wednesday’’s match.

Their coach Paul Put, a wily old fox who guided Burkina Faso to the final of the 2013 CAF Nations Cup tournament in South Africa where they lost to Nigeria, also wanted to be told the areas where the pitch is smooth and where it has rough patches.

Another batch of fans is expected this week just before USM Alger plunge into their CAF Champions League Group B battle against CAPS United at the National Sports Stadium which gets underway at 3pm on Africa Day eve.

With the match set to start just hours before the Africa Day holiday, CAPS United expect a bumper crowd to sing in their corner and help them secure a first Champions League group game victory in their history.

Makepekepe are playing at this level of the game for the first time and got their group campaign with a little loss when they crashed to a 0-2 defeat at the hands of five-time African champions Zamalek in Alexandria 10 days ago.

If CAPS United lose this game, they might leave themselves with too much to do to catch up with their North African opponents in the race for the two group tickets for a place in the quarter-finals of this tournament.

A win will bring them firmly back into contention as they will be level on points with the Algerians, who won their opening game 3-0 against Al Ahli of Tripoli and — depending on the result between the Libyans and Zamalek — all the three teams in Group B could have three points at the end of the second round of matches.

But CAPS United have to first beat USM Alger on Wednesday and, given the quality of the opponents, that will not be an easy task.

The Algerians have been transformed into a very powerful force in the past seven years, thanks to the millions that have been injected into their coffers by their wealthy club president whose net fortune is reported to be around $300 million, and 17 months ago they came within 90 minutes of becoming African champions.

USM Alger reached the final of the Champions League in 2015 — in a season in which three Algerian sides made the group stage and found themselves in the same group — but lost to Congolese giants TP Mazembe.

As fate would have scripted it, TP Mazembe — who have been five-time African champions — were the last team to play CAPS United in this Champions League adventure in an eliminator at the National Sports Stadium.

On a nervy winner-take-all afternoon, when the character of the CAPS United players was brutally examined by an opponent with a higher Champions League pedigree and whose stars played that game with an incentive they would each get brand new Mercedes Benz models of their choice should they win that game, Makepekepe gave as much as they got to get the big result they wanted.

Given that TP Mazembe have won three Champions League titles in the past eight years, and also became the first African club to reach the FIFA Club World Cup semi-finals, CAPS United’s elimination of the Congolese giants was the greatest giant-killing act of the group stage elimination battles.

Wednesday’s game means Makepekepe will also become the first team to play four consecutive games against three clubs that have been champions of Africa and runners-up in the past two seasons.

Zamalek, of course, were losing finalists in the 2016 CAF Champions League where they lost that show-piece match 1-3 on aggregate to Mamelodi Sundowns of South Africa.

USM Alger chartered a plane for the trip to Harare, as Makepekepe did for their invasion of Lubumbashi, and the 45-man party was scheduled to touch down in the capital last night.

The squad includes two players who were part of the all-star Algerian squad at the Nations’ Cup finals in Gabon earlier this year — Mohamed Rabie Mefta and 24-year-old Mohamed Benyahia — in a defence that featured players from Real Betis in Spain, Rennes in France, Crotone in Italy and Servette in Switzerland.

Mefta played in the 2-2 draw against Zimbabwe in Gabon after coming in as a second half substitute while he started in the 1-2 defeat to Tunisia and the 2-2 draw against Senegal.

That Algerian side featured superstars like Riyad Mahrez and Islam Slimani and arrived in Gabon as favourites for the crown but crashed out in the group stages as football showed it’s unpredictability once again.

And it’s such stories that should give CAPS United hope that even though they are underdogs it doesn’t mean they can’t write their own fairytale and a win over the Algerians could spark that run which their president Farai Jere believes could even take them all the way to the final of this Champions League.

USM Alger arrive in Harare having scored in each of their last five matches, including nine in their last four, and there are some analysts who even claim they have far more quality than TP Mazembe.

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