Stade Malien coach Mauril Njoya has no regrets after CAF Champions League exit

The Malian Premiere Division side were impressive as they secured their last eight place as winners of Group D with just one loss from six games.

Their hopes of progressing to the semi-finals took a hit with a 3-0 away loss to Sundowns in their first leg clash at Loftus Versfeld.

But they made Sundowns work for their place in the semi-finals with a much stronger performance at home, winning the second leg 2-0, but ultimately going out of the competition.

Taddeus Nkeng had opened the scoring inside the first minute and Haman Mandjan added a second in the final minutes of the first half.

Speaking after the game, Njoya expressed his disappointment on Soccer Laduma, saying: "Simply to say that we left the competition disappointed, because any coach in my place would be disappointed, because we dropped the weapons at hand and we had the ability and the possibility to go as far as possible, to go to the semi-final and why not to the final.

“I think we can be proud of this score, we shouldn't go back on it now, but I just want to say that we are proud of our team, we are proud of what has been done, and we think that if we can speak in a fairly logical way, this team, reinforced next season, could go to the final.”

"That's why we think that there are still no regrets, we are going to take it back and come back to the Champions League because our vocation, the vocation of Stade Malien, is always to be a champion," the coach added.