South Sudan Premier League champions El Merriekh Bentiu have stopped Gor Mahia FC (Kenya) in the first leg 1st preliminary round of the 2024/2025 TotalEnergies CAF Champions League.

After a goalless first half, Mohamed Musa gave El Merriekh Bentiu the lead after 67 minutes to send the home fans into jubilation at the Juba Stadium on Sunday.

The Kenyan champions tried to fight back to find goals, but failed to beat the El Merriekh defending line.

“I am very happy scoring the lone goal that has given us the goal infront of our home fans,” said a happy Mohamed Musa.

El Merriekh Bentiu’s win comes after getting good build-up matches when they played in the recent CECAFA Dar Port Kagame Cup where they held SC Villa (Uganda) to a 0-0 draw, lost 1-0 to Rwanda’s APR FC and lost 3-1 to Singida Black Stars FC (Tanzania).

In another match involving teams from the CECAFA Zone hosts Azam FC (Tanzania) beat APR FC at the Azam Complex in Dar es salaam. Brazilian import Jhonier Blanco converted a penalty after 56 minutes after Fei Toto had been brought down in the box.

Later JKU SC (Zanzibar) suffered a big 6-0 will defeat to Pyramids FC in Cairo, Egypt, while Al- Hilal (Sudan) picked a hard fought 2-1 against Al Ahly Benghazi in Libya.