Today

First leg
Heartland FC vs TP Mazembe

ABUJA - Heartland FC will seek to become only the second club from Africa’s most populous nation to win the CAF Champions League when they host TP Mazembe Englebert of Congo DR in the first leg of the continental final on Sunday.

The Nigerian club will be desperate to build a decent lead at the Owerri showdown ahead of next weekend’s return in Lubumbashi.

Only one other Nigerian side has ever won the top club prize in African football, with Enyimba claiming glory in 2003 and 2004 to mark a long-awaited breakthrough for the giant west African country.

However, Heartland have come close before and will now seeking to take that decisive step in the direction of the winners’ rostrum.

Before they changed their name from Iwuanyanwu Nationale, Heartland were finalists in the old-style CAF Champions Cup in 1988 and later bounced back from the tragedy of losing two players in an air crash in 1994 on their way back from a match in Tunisia.

Such adversity has built a unity at the club which captain Thankgod Ike hopes will prove crucial to their bid for glory.

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