{"id":32409,"date":"2026-04-19T10:19:27","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T08:19:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=32409"},"modified":"2026-04-19T10:19:27","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T08:19:27","slug":"moroccos-royal-armed-forces-to-meet-sundowns-in-african-champions-league-final","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/moroccos-royal-armed-forces-to-meet-sundowns-in-african-champions-league-final\/","title":{"rendered":"Morocco&#8217;s Royal Armed Forces to meet Sundowns in African Champions League final"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Morocco\u2019s Royal Armed Forces advanced to the African Champions League final despite a 1-0 loss \u200cin Saturday\u2019s second leg against compatriots Renaissance Berkane.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The military team won 2-1 on aggregate and will take on Mamelodi Sundowns in the two-legged final next \u2060month after the South African side secured a 2-0 aggregate victory over Tunisia&#8217;s Esperance earlier on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Royal Armed Forces were 2-0 winners in the first leg in Rabat last week and held out in the return until conceding a penalty in \u200cthe \u206057th minute, which Yassine Labhiri converted.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Berkane, in their debut Champions League campaign, failed to score a second goal to take the tie \u2060to a penalty shootout.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Sundowns will host the first leg of the final on May 15 with \u2060the return in Rabat seven days later.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Royal Armed Forces won Africa\u2019s top club \u2060competition in 1985 but have not reached the final since.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":22848,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-32409","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Morocco\u2019s Royal Armed Forces advanced to the African Champions League final","published_date":"2026-04-19 10:18:34","news_description":"Morocco\u2019s Royal Armed Forces advanced to the African Champions League final","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/32409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/32409\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32410,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/32409\/revisions\/32410"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=32409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}