Al Ahly head coach Pitso Mosimane has piled on the pressure on former club Mamelodi Sundowns by insisting that, after beating his defending champions home and away, they are now favourites, likening any failure to win it to that of PSG in Europe.

The Brazilians became the first team in 20 years to beat the Egyptian giants in consecutive group-stage games with a 1-0 win at the FNB Stadium this past Saturday.

Speaking after the game, Mosimane insisted with the amount of investment made at his former club, they are favourites to win the competition.

“Sundowns have the opportunity to win [the Champions League for the first time] since 2016. It’s been too long, man,” said Mosimane.

“They’ve invested a lot of money on players, and you can see even in the January transfers, they’ve really invested a lot of money, even more than us.”

Mosimane, however, admitted that the competition changes in the knockout stages.

“The group stages will deceive you all the time,” added Mosimane.

“You can win six out of six and stay No 1, but let’s go to the knockout stages. And now don’t go to Morocco [to meet Raja Casablanca or Wydad Athletic] because it [their stadiums] is open now, they have 50,000 fans on the stands.

“Go to Tunisia; they have 50,000 now. They’re open. Unfortunately, in Egypt, we don’t open that much. We wish that they open.

“The pressure is on them. They have to win it. I mean, really, if they can beat Al Ahly home and away, they must just as well win it. If they don’t win it, it’s a PSG story again, akere [right]?

“What’s important is winning that trophy, put it on the table. Then we talk. Now it’s OK; it’s part of football [to lose in the group stages]. You can win all the group matches, but I think you know the story at the end,” concluded the former Bafana Bafana coach.