The confrontation between South Africa Mamelodi Sundowns and South Korea’s Ulsan, the first round of FIFA Group F Grupo FIFA, was marked by the delay of the match due to the risk of storm and lightning and the very low audience (3,412) present at Inter & Co Stadium in Orlando, United States.
Another fact marked the victory of the African team in the competition: the singing of Mamelodi players in the access corridor to the field before the match.
Videos published on social networks show the players of the team singing a song in the local dialect. The practice is quite common before the African team’s matches and is known in local culture as “Gwijo”, a kind of ancestral collective singing to the chapel, traditionally pulled by one of the players with a question and answered by others in choir.
“Gwijo” is commonly held at events such as weddings, funerals and other important moments in local culture.
Mamelodi, ranked to the Club Cup by the Ranking of the Africa Football Confederation (CAF), won the first victory of an African team in the competition.
Before him, Egypt’s Al ahly had already entered the field of Egyptian, classified for being the champion of the African Champions League in the 2020/21 season, and was in a goalless draw against Inter Miami, and Tunisia’s Spertance, guaranteed by the continental ranking and that lost 2-0 to Flamengo.
Still on Wednesday (19), the fourth and last African debuts, with a very difficult match ahead: Morocco’s Wydad Casablanca, Champions League champion of Africa in the 2021/22 season, faces Manchester City, European champion in the 2022/23 season and one of the favorites to raise the new competition champion in the United States.
Mamelodi and Ulsan are in the same group as Fluminense and Borussia, who were in a goalless draw at their debut.
In the next round of the group, on Saturday (21), Fluminense faces the Ulsan of South Korea in New Jersey at 7 pm (Brasília time), while Borussia faces South Africa Mamelodi Sundowns at 1 pm, possibly with a new singing of African players before the confrontation against the Germans.
