Mamelodi Sundowns general manager Yogesh Singh says he knew they might be drawn with old nemesis Wydad Casablanca in their group this season.
The Absa Premiership champions will meet the Moroccans for the fourth consecutive season in the CAF Champions League in Group C that also contains USM Alger (Algeria) and Petro de Luanda (Angola).
"Well I mean you can see this is the top 16 in Africa so there's no easy draw," Singh tells snl24.com/kickoff.
"We respect everybody, and we've got the same chance as everyone. I mean to be drawn against Wydad again, but some of us had the feeling that you know that could happen.
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"But you know it's a making of a rivalry. The advantage is that we know most of their players, they know most of our players, and we'll be looking to get a better result against them because last year we had a good game against them it was just the lapse in concentration which in the end cost us the tie. So we are looking forward to meeting them again.
"There are no easy matches, we cannot take any of the other teams for granted. We have not played against Petro de Luanda or against USM Alger, so both will be new opponents for us but we'll have to start doing some research and background watching their matches. Like I said of all the opponents Wydad is the one that we know the best. But the other two opponents, nobody is there by luck or by chance, everybody is there on merit and we'll respect them, we have to do our homework. So our preparations for all the three opponents will be the same.
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"We will need to improve, whatever you do you need to improve, you need to look at what went wrong [last season] and you need to fix it, you need to improve in areas where you are weak, or in areas where you think you are strong, you need to reinforce and make sure that those areas are being reinforced. So all round we need to prepare better than we prepared last season and at the end of the day I think it will show on the pitch.
"You must know for Sundowns it's not about winning the league in South Africa, it's not about winning cups in South Africa... you know it doesn't end there for us, our mission every single year is to qualify for the Champions League and to win it. So just like every other competition we play in, whether it's the PSL where every season we are trying to win it. We are not going in there to finish top three or top five or top eight, no. We enter the competition at the start of every season to win it.
"As a club we want to win the Champions League, we want to play with the best in Africa and have the chance to compete with the best in the world. That's what is in our DNA, that is what Sundowns is all about."
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