CAF CL Q Draw: Zoom Into Belouizdad Ahead Of WAC Tie

Wydad Casablanca are up against Algerian side CR Belouizdad in the quarter-finals of the Champions League!

Belouizdad is, without a doubt, the team to have sprung up the most surprises at this stage of the competition.

The Algerians placed second in Group C with 11 points (3 wins, 2 draws and 1 loss), and ended under the noses of 2007 champions ES Sahel.

Successive winners of Algerian title, CR Belouizdad with 8 local titles in total, hasn’t however managed to impose themselves at the continental level.

They have never won an African club competition, notably stopping in the quarter-finals of the Champions League last season against ES Tunis. It was their best result since the Cup Winners’ Cup semi-final in 1996.

Care must be taken, though, as Belouizdad could be the ultimate outsiders, like Kaizer Chiefs was last year.

Kheireddine Merzougui has been the CRB star player. He arrived year, and now is the team’s top scorer in the league (8 goals), as in CAF champions league with 3 goals.

Aged 29, he is back in top form after four years of suspension. In 2016, he was pinned for “violation of anti-doping rules” after a positive test for methylhexaneamine while he was playing at MC Alger. It was the same case that involved Youcef Belaïli, who was then playing at USMA.

Merzougui, is therefore a player to watch closely for Achraf Dari’s and his teammates.

For Wydad, few can claim to be bigger than them on the African synergy. Domestically, Wydad has won a record of 21 Moroccan league titles and nine Moroccan Throne Cups, becoming the most titled club in Morocco.

In continental and international competitions, the club has won two CAF Champions Leagues, one African Cup Winners’ Cup, one CAF Super Cup, one Afro-Asian Club Championship, one Mohammed V Trophy, one Arab Club Champions Cup, one Arab Super Cup, three North African Championships and one North African Cup.

It promises to be an epic confrontation on April 15th and 22nd between these two.