The Confederation of African Football (CAF) yesterday announced draws for the CAF Confederation Cup and both Zambian teams have been drawn in group C.
Unlike in Europe teams from the same country can be drawn into the same group. In group A they are three Morocco teams in Hassania Agadir,, RS Berkane and Raja Casablanca while group B also has two teams in Etoile du Sahel and CS Sfaxien.
However for Nkana and Zesco United facing each other is not the only familiar thing as they will also face their former player in Idris Ilunga Mbombo who is on the books of Sudanese side Al Hilal.
The Congolese forward joined Zesco United before the start of the 2016 season and helped Zesco United to reach the semi-finals of the CAF Champions League scoring five goals in the Competition and only Reda Hajhouj (6) and Mfon Udoh (9) scored more goals.
In that year Mbombo scored a total of 16 goals despite being injured for a bigger part of the season, 9 in the league, one in the Charity Shield and the only goal in the final of the Barclays Cup against Zanaco at Heroes Stadium.
In 2017 the Congolese striker had a poor season and only managed to score less than five goals and made his move to Saudi Arabia.
At the start of the 2018 season he returned to Zambia and this time around on the books of the twelve time Super League Champions, Nkana. The former Kabwe Warriors talisman took no time to settle scoring three goals in the Samuel ‘Zoom’ Ndhlovu Charity Shield (The curtain raiser for the Zambian league).
Mbombo was on fire and was scoring goals for fun netting 21 times in the league and winning the top goalscorer award despite having two of his goals scrapped off after the match against Red Arrows was abandoned. He become a darling at Nkana every time he scored the fans would sing ‘Mbombo Mbombo Mbombo Mbombo Mbombo ‘ a Nkana version of one of the sound tracks from the Shaka Zulu movie.
He was voted as the player of the year at the end of the season beating Zesco United striker Lazarus Kambole to the crown. He also scored twice in the Barclays Cup which Nkana managed to win though he missed the final as he had already gone to Sudan.
It will be interesting to see if he come back to haunt his former teams or they will be able to handle him. Nkana will host Al Hilal on 13th February while Zesco will host them on 24th of the same month.
CAF CONFEDERATION CUP
Group A
Hassania Agadir
Otôho d’Oyo
RS Berkane
Raja Casablanca
Group B
Etoile du Sahel
Salitas
Enugu Rangers
CS Sfaxien
Group C
Zesco
Al Hilal
Asante Kotoko
Nkana
Group D
Zamalek
Gor Mahia
Hussein Dey
Petro Atletico
