Reaching the group stage of the TotalEnergies CAF Champions League is one of the toughest tests in African club football as clubs begin their campaigns this weekend with that aim in mind.
The preliminary round of the competition will begin with the first legs on 04-06 September and conclude a week later. There will be a second round too for teams to navigate before the 16 teams qualify for the pool stages.
Across the last five editions of the TotalEnergies CAF Champions League, from 2021/22 through to 2025/26, there have been 80 available group-stage places, which have been filled by 38 different clubs. Yet only four have managed to qualify in every single season.
Al Ahly (Egypt), Al Hilal (Sudan), Espérance de Tunis (Tunisia) and current holders Mamelodi Sundowns (South Africa) are the competition’s consistency kings over that period, each appearing in all five group stages.
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Between them, those four clubs have occupied 20 of the 80 available places, exactly 25% of the total, illustrating just how difficult it is for new challengers to break the grip of Africa’s most established sides.
Al Ahly will not be there this season though as they are playing in the TotalEnergies CAF Confederation Cup instead, but the other three all have a chance to maintain their record.
Just behind them are CR Belouizdad (Algeria) and Petro de Luanda (Angola), who have each reached the group stage four times in the last five seasons.
Belouizdad qualified in four successive campaigns before missing out in 2025/26, while Petro have established themselves as one of the most consistent continental performers from Southern Africa.
The fact that only six clubs have made four or more group-stage appearances in five seasons shows how quickly fortunes can change at this level.
The next group contains five clubs with three appearances each, and this is where some of the competition’s more recent upward trends become apparent.
Pyramids FC (Egypt) and Young Africans (Tanzania) have both reached the groups in each of the last three seasons, transforming themselves from occasional challengers into regular members of the elite stage of the competition.
Simba SC (Tanzania) have also qualified three times, further underlining the country’s growing presence in CAF club football, while Moroccan heavyweights Raja Casablanca and Wydad AC have each featured in three of the five editions.
That means only 11 clubs have qualified for at least three of the last five Champions League group stages.
It means fewer than a third of the 38 clubs to have reached the groups during this period have done so in the majority of those five seasons.
A further 10 clubs have qualified twice, and this group contains an intriguing mixture of continental heavyweights and emerging challengers.
TP Mazembe (DR Congo) and Zamalek (Egypt), both clubs with rich histories in African football, sit alongside sides such as AS FAR (Morocco) and MC Alger (Algeria), who have recently forced their way back into the group-stage picture.
Jwaneng Galaxy have twice carried Botswana into the last 16, while Sagrada Esperança have done the same for Angola. Al Merrikh (Sudan), Horoya (Guinea), JS Kabylie (Algeria) and Étoile du Sahel (Tunisia) complete a group that demonstrates the geographical spread of clubs capable of establishing themselves at this level.
Seventeen clubs have reached the group stage only once in the last five seasons, which is almost 45% of all the teams to have appeared at that stage.
That statistic perhaps tells the story of the competition better than any other.
For some, the single appearance represented a major breakthrough. AmaZulu (South Africa) reached the groups in 2021/22, while FC Nouadhibou (Mauritania) made history for Mauritanian club football in 2023/24.
Medeama carried Ghana into the group stage in the same season, while Stade d’Abidjan returned Côte d’Ivoire to that level in 2024/25.
Orlando Pirates (South Africa), one of the continent’s historic names and former African champions, also feature among the clubs with a single group-stage appearance in this five-season window, illustrating how even traditional powers can find consistency difficult.
The other one-time qualifiers are: AS Maniema Union, AS Vita Club, Saint-Éloi Lupopo (all DR Congo), ASEC Mimosas (Côte d’Ivoire), Coton Sport (Cameroon), Djoliba AC, Stade Malien (both Mali), ES Sétif (Algeria), Power Dynamos (Zambia), RS Berkane (Morocco), Rivers United (Nigeria), Vipers SC (Uganda).
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Of the 38 different clubs to reach the group stage over the last five seasons, only 21 have done so more than once.
There is, however, evidence of new challengers beginning to establish themselves.
Pyramids and Young Africans have now qualified three years in succession, while AS FAR and MC Alger have made it in each of the last two seasons.
With a maximum of two clubs from any one country able to reach the group stage in a single season, the theoretical maximum over the five-year period is 10 places. Egypt are the only country to have filled all 10 – Al Ahly (five), Pyramids (three) and Zamalek (two).
Algeria and Morocco have both filled nine slots, with South Africa, Sudan and Tunisia on seven each.
Algeria, Morocco and DR Congo have each had four different clubs reach the group stage, the most of any country, while Egypt and South Africa have had three.