SFAX — Club Sportif Sfaxien will face Shooting Stars SC of Nigeria and Espérance Sportive de Zarzis will meet FC Diambars of Senegal in the first preliminary round of the CAF Confederation Cup, following the draw held on Thursday at the confederation's headquarters in Cairo.
Sfax play the first leg away and the return at home. Zarzis have the reverse order: Diambars come to Tunisia first, and the tie is decided in Senegal. First legs are scheduled between 4 and 6 September, with return legs a week later, between 11 and 13 September.
The draw also set the second round for whoever survives. CS Sfaxien would meet the winner of AC Amadou Diallo of Côte d'Ivoire against East End Lions of Sierra Leone. Zarzis would face the qualifier from Vitas FC of Burkina Faso against Real Bamako of Mali.
The same week produced Tunisia's Champions League pairings for Espérance de Tunis and Club Africain, drawn at the same venue.
Two clubs, two different problems
For Sfax, the tie is a matter of restoring a habit. The club won this competition three times — in 2007, 2008 and 2013 — and its continental record is the strongest of any Tunisian side outside the two Tunis clubs. That history sets the expectation, and the preliminary round is exactly where such expectations have gone wrong for North African clubs before: an away leg in West Africa in early September, on a pitch and in a climate nothing like Sfax, against opponents whose season is already underway.
Shooting Stars, based in Ibadan, are one of Nigerian football's older institutions. The relevant point is not the badge but the calendar. The Nigerian league season and the Tunisian one do not align, and the side arriving in better rhythm generally decides the first leg.
For Zarzis, the problem is different. It is a modest club from the south, operating on one of the smaller budgets in the top flight, and it has drawn the order it should want: a home leg first, a chance to build a lead in front of its own crowd, and a single trip to Dakar to protect it. Diambars, the academy club from Saly, have a reputation for producing players rather than for continental results — but academy sides tend to be technically comfortable and young enough to run for ninety minutes in September heat.
The scheduling squeeze nobody controls
The awkward part is the date. Early September falls at the start of the domestic season, and the league calendar for 2026-2027 was published only last week. Clubs in continental competition will be assembling squads, completing registrations — the federation issued a reminder to clubs about player licensing requirements days ago — and travelling, all in the same fortnight.
That is where preliminary rounds are usually lost. Elimination at this stage costs a club the group-phase revenue it has budgeted for, which in turn constrains the following season's recruitment. The cost of going out in September is paid the following July.
What clubs in similar positions do
The approaches that recur among clubs that clear these rounds are unremarkable and mostly logistical: registering the full continental squad before the first leg rather than during it, travelling to West Africa two or three days early to absorb the heat and the journey, and treating the home leg as the one to win outright rather than the one to survive.
For Zarzis in particular, drawing the home leg first is an advantage only if it is converted: a narrow win carried to Dakar is a thinner margin than it looks over 180 minutes. That is the calculation both Tunisian clubs will be making between now and the first week of September.