MONROVIA, Montserrado – New ranking from FootballDatabase.com shows that none of the clubs participating in Liberia’s football leagues are among the top 400 teams from Africa.
The rankings are calculated based on the importance of the club football competitions from around the world, with significant factors including weighing for the kind of match, home team advantage, goal difference in the game result, expected result of the game and previous ranking.
The inability of Liberian clubs to perform in the Confederation of African Football top two competitions – the CAF Champions League and the CAF Confederation Cup – over the past years has contributed to this low ranking.
Liberia’s representative to the 2016 CAF Champions League, Nimba United, were eliminated from the first qualifying round by Cameroon’s Union du Douala while Barrack Young Controller II was also eliminated from the first qualifying round of the CAF Confederation Cup by Morocco’s Kawkab Athletic Club of Marrakech.
The last time a Liberian club performed well in a CAF competition was back in 1989 when the LPRC Oilers reached the quarter-finals of the CAF Winner’s Cup.
Since the glory days of LPRC Oilers, it has only been the Barrack Young Controllers that have managed to reach the second preliminary round of the CAF Champions League. The Go Blue Boys reached the second preliminary round in the 2014 edition after securing a 2-2 aggregate with Ghanaian league giant Asante Kotoko.
BYC suffered a 2-1 defeat away at Ghana before securing a narrow 1-0 win in the return leg at the Antoinette Tubman Stadium as they advanced on the away goal rule.
Meanwhile, the club of Liberia’s own Anthony Laffor, the Mamelodi Sundowns, has been ranked the number one team in Africa.
The Sundowns, the defending champions of the South African ABSA Premiership are currently unbeaten in the CAF Champions League group stages. Despite one remaining game in the group stage, the South African club has won their group and advanced to the semifinals of the competition.
Featured photo by T. Kla Wesley, Jr.
