Sixty-one clubs, one opening weekend, plenty of goals. The First Preliminary Round of the 2026/27 CAF Champions League got underway with matches played across the continent from Friday through Sunday, and by the time the last matches finished the shape of the next round had already started to form. Some ties look close to settled. Others are still anyone’s game.
Fans switched between commentary feeds and live boards on sports betting apps as the scores rolled in, keeping half an eye on how the numbers moved with each goal. That kind of attention isn’t unusual for a round this spread out – results landed from Guinea-Bissau to Mozambique across three separate days, with no single kickoff time to build a weekend around.
Away Wins Change the Calculation
Al Hilal Omdurman produced one of the standout results of the round, winning 2-0 on the road against Aigle Noir in Bujumbura. That’s about as good a start as a traveling side gets in a two-legged tie – a two-goal cushion and a clean sheet away from home. Zamalek, five-time African champions, had a rougher route to the same kind of lead. They went 2-0 up early against AS Port before the hosts pulled one back late, closing out the first leg 2-1.
Club Africain took a narrower path still, edging out Malian side Djoliba AC 1-0. It’s a lead, but a single goal in continental football has a way of feeling thin once the return leg kicks off. Teungueth FC will feel similarly – their 1-0 win at Canchungo puts them in front, but not out of reach.
Here’s a spread of how first legs finished across all three days of the round:
| Day | Match | First-Leg Score |
| Friday | Asswehly SC vs KVZ | 1-0 |
| Friday | Zamalek vs AS Port | 2-1 |
| Friday | JS Saoura vs Horoya AC | 1-0 |
| Saturday | Aigle Noir vs Al Hilal Omdurman | 0-2 |
| Saturday | El Merreikh Bentiu vs Heegan | 1-0 |
| Saturday | CFFA vs Lijabatho | 2-0 |
| Saturday | Aiglons vs Sidama Bunna | 0-0 |
| Saturday | MangaSport vs African Stars | 3-1 |
| Saturday | Canchungo vs Teungueth FC | 0-1 |
| Saturday | San Pedro vs Rivers United | 1-1 |
| Saturday | Vipers vs Nouadhibou | 1-1 |
| Saturday | Al Merrikh (Sudan) vs Power Dynamos | 1-0 |
| Saturday | Gaborone United vs Young Africans | 1-1 |
| Saturday | Club Africain vs Djoliba AC | 1-0 |
| Sunday | La Cure Waves vs Orlando Pirates | 0-0 |
| Sunday | Gor Mahia vs Pyramids FC | 0-2 |
| Sunday | Mighty Wanderers vs Simba SC | 0-1 |
Several Ties Still Up For Grabs
Not every tie was settled after the opening leg. Matches across all three days finished level, and those are the ones where the second leg carries real weight, not just a lead to protect. A few stand out:
- Star Sport Academy 0-0 Medina United – the winner meets Moroccan side RS Berkane in the Second Preliminary Round
- Aiglons 0-0 Sidama Bunna – the winner draws Al Hilal Omdurman next, so this tie decides who gets a shot at a continental heavyweight
- Gaborone United 1-1 Young Africans – the Tanzanian side needed a stoppage-time equalizer just to leave Botswana level
- La Cure Waves 0-0 Orlando Pirates – a goalless draw against a club making its continental debut, with the Mauritian side holding a South African giant scoreless
- San Pedro 1-1 Rivers United and Vipers 1-1 Nouadhibou both stay open too, with away goals doing a lot of the talking once the second legs are done
Waiting in the Wings
Three clubs skipped this round entirely. Defending champions Mamelodi Sundowns, Tunisia’s Espérance de Tunis and Morocco’s RS Berkane are exempted as the tournament’s top-ranked sides and go straight into the Second Preliminary Round in October. Sundowns, who beat AS FAR 2-1 on aggregate in May’s final, are already watching to see which side survives its own qualifying path to earn a meeting with the champions.
That’s really the story of this stage of the competition: it’s not just about who wins a tie but about who those wins put in front of next.
Mobile Screens and Matchday Habits
Continental preliminary rounds used to be the kind of fixtures only die-hard fans bothered to follow. That’s shifted, and a lot of it comes down to mobile: fans catching a scoreline between meetings, checking markets on platforms like Afropari alongside live commentary, then getting back to whatever they were doing. Lesser-known clashes like CFFA against Lijabatho get almost the same real-time attention now as the marquee ties, simply because a phone makes it effortless.
None of that changes what’s at stake for the clubs themselves. Betting interest around these matches is best treated as light entertainment – a way to follow a tie a little closer, not a strategy for a payday.
What Advancing Actually Means
None of these ties end with the second leg. Whoever survives the preliminary round moves into the Second Preliminary Round in October, up against sides that sat this stage out entirely, or against clubs that had their own opening-weekend battles to get through first. Al Hilal Omdurman’s two-goal cushion from Bujumbura puts them in a stronger spot heading into that stage than a side like Aiglons or Sidama Bunna, who still have to survive a coin-flip tie before they even know who they’re facing next. For clubs from smaller federations, simply reaching October already counts as a result worth noting – continental qualifying rarely offers a second chance this early in the competition.
