JOHANNESBURG, May 18, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - Renaissance Berkane of Morocco scored twice within the opening 14 minutes to beat Simba of Tanzania 2-0 on Saturday in the CAF Confederation Cup final first leg.

Senegalese Mamadou Camara struck after eight minutes and Oussama Lamlioui six minutes later in front of a sell-out 15,000 crowd at the Municipal Stadium in Berkane.

Title favourites Renaissance had the ball in the net a third time on the hour mark, but a lengthy VAR review ruled that scorer Youssef Mehri was marginally offside.

Simba did well to recover from a disastrous start in their first Confederation Cup final appearance, but flopped in the attacking third and did not muster a single attempt on target.

The result will offer some hope for the east African side ahead of the May 25 return match as they overcame a two-goal first leg deficit against Al Masry of Egypt in the quarter-finals.

Berkane, who scored five goals twice and four once in home matches en route to the final, would have hoped for a wider winning margin having made such a spectacular start.

Away goals count double in African club competitions and should the Moroccan side score once in Tanzania, Simba would have to find the net four times to succeed.

Given two-time Confederation Cup winners Renaissance have conceded just twice in 13 African matches this season, that would be a mammoth task for the Dar es Salaam outfit.

South Africa-born Simba coach Fadlu Davids acknowledged before the match that his team would spend much of the tie defending.

But he could not have envisaged that Guinean goalkeeper Moussa Camara would be picking the ball out of his net twice so early in the northeast Moroccan city.

Berkane's Camara scored from the first corner, soaring unchallenged to head the ball across the goal and into the far corner of the net.

When Simba conceded possession not far from their area soon after, Lamlioui took advantage to score with a close-range shot that took a slight deflection as it trickled past Camara.

It was the sixth goal of the campaign for Lamlioui, making him joint leading scorer with Zakaria Benchaa from beaten semi-finalists CS Constantine of Algeria.

The Simba shot-stopper then prevented further damage with his outstretched leg foiling an Imad Riahi attempt to put Berkane three goals ahead.

Simba lost centre-back Abdulrazack Hamza in the first half, and star attacker Denis Kibu at half-time, to injuries.

Scorer Camara thought he had turned goal provider when his chip was fired into the net by Mehri, but a four-minute delay ended with the Gabonese referee disallowing the goal.

An aggregate victory for Berkane would equal the record of three Confederation Cup titles held by CS Sfaxien of Tunisia.