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Orlando Pirates drew La Cure Waves SC of Mauritius in the first preliminary round of the 2026-27 Caf Champions League on Thursday. Pirates — winners of the 1995 predecessor to the Champions League, the African Cup of Champions Clubs — qualified for this season’s tournament as 2025-26 Betway Premiership winners. La Cure Waves were also champions of their league, Mauritius’s National Super League, but the Buccaneers will be heavily favoured for a convincing win against the semi-professional island minnows. Pirates have reached one Champions League final, in 2013, and exited in the semifinals in 2024-25 to the eventual winners in the final against Sundowns, Egypt’s Pyramids FC. The two-legged first round matches will be played on September 4-6 and September 11-13. Mamelodi Sundowns, the 2016 and last campaign’s Champions League winners who qualified this time as 2025-26 Premiership runners-up to Pirates, have a bye in the opening round. Downs will meet Angola’s Wiliete de Benguela or Seychelles’s Foresters Mont Fleuri FC in the second round. In the 2025-26 Caf Confederation Cup, Durban City will meet Rukinzo FC from Burundi in the opening preliminary round. City qualified as winners of last season’s Nedbank Cup. Kaizer Chiefs, who qualified as third-placed Premiership finishers, have a bye into the second preliminary round, where they will meet the winners of Zambia’s Red Arrows and Madagascar’s FC Rouge. TimesLIVE