All four African football clubs at the ongoing FIFA Club World Cup (CWC) have been eliminated as the competition advances to the knock-out stages. The elimination of South Africa’s Mamelodi Sundowns on Wednesday confirmed that no African team would progress to the next stage of the competition.
Yesterday, the Premier Soccer League side played a goalless draw with Brazilian side, Fluminense in Miami. With the scoreline, Mamelodi Sundowns finished third in group F, with a point behind Fluminense and three behind the leader, Borussia Dortmund.
More so, the South African side needed a win to scale through to the next round, but failed to break through the resilient defence of the Brazilian team. So far, Mamelodi Sundowns has been the standout African club at the ongoing tournament in the United States.
In their first game of the tournament, Sundowns won 1-0 against South Korea’s Ulsan Hyundai after Iqram Rayners scored the only goal of the match in the 36th minute. On match day two, the South African side lost 4-3 to Dortmund in a seven-goal thriller, before playing a goalless draw with Fluminense.
How other African teams performed at the CWC
Meanwhile, Espérance Sportive de Tunis is another top-performing African team in the tournament but also finished third with three points in group D of CWC. The Tunisian side lost 2-nil in their opening game to the Brazilian side, Flamengo.
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Thereafter, Esperance beat LA Galaxy 1-0 in match day two before losing 3-0 to English side, Chelsea FC in the last game of the group. Egyptian side Al Ahly finished at the bottom of group A with just two points.
However, Wydad Casablanca is out of the CWC despite having a game at hand. The Moroccan team lost its first two opening games to Juventus and Manchester City.
There is nothing left to play for as the two bottom teams of the group, Wyad AC and Al Ain will be facing each other today at 20:00 W.A.T in Washington.
It is worth mentioning that the ongoing CWC has taken a new format with 32 teams participating instead of the regular 7. According to FIFA, the competition will come up every four years instead of yearly, and the inaugural edition of the new CWC is currently ongoing in the United States.
