African Champions League: Coton Sport suffer surprise defeat in Burkina Faso

Esperance of Tunisia celebrate after winning the 2018 African Champions League

ASF Bobo Dioulasso of Burkina Faso caused the biggest upset in Tuesday's African Champions League preliminary round first leg matches, beating Coton Sport of Cameroon 3-1.

Coton, the 2008 runners-up, took a 32nd-minute lead, but the home side, ASFB, levelled within three minutes through Sami Hien.

Second-half goals from Michel Batiebo and Armand Sanou made it 3-1 to the hosts to boost their hopes of a last-32 place.

The return match is scheduled for Garoua in Cameroon next week with the local club needing to score at least twice if they want to avoid an early exit.

Elsewhere on Tuesday, Bantu of Lesotho exceeded expectations by coming from behind to hold 2018 Champions League group qualifiers Township Rollers of Botswana 1-1 in Lobatse.

Rollers, who surprised Al Merrikh of Sudan and Young Africans of Tanzania to reach the last 16 in the previous edition, took a second-half lead at home through Thatayaone Ditlhokwe.

But Bantu equalised within four minutes via Letsiepo Marabe and will advance to the final qualifying round if they can prevent Rollers from scoring in Maseru next week.

Another club to perform much better than anticipated were Gamtel of the Gambia, who held CS Constantine to a 0-0 draw in Algeria.

Ittihad Tanger of Morocco would have expected to win by a wider margin than 1-0 at home to Elect-Sport of Chad.

After a lengthy debate over who would take an Ittihad penalty just before half-time, Omar Arjoune converted the spot-kick for the only goal of the game.

The most convincing winners were twice runners-up Al Hilal of Sudan and debutants Al Nasr of Libya, who built four-goal advantages at home.

Geovane Silva from Brazil, Malian Boubacar Diarra, Idris Mbombo from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudanese Abdellatif Saied netted as Hilal won 4-0 against JKU of Zanzibar.

The first Champions League appearance of Nasr from Benghazi was memorable as they hammered Al Hilal Juba of South Sudan 5-1 in a match moved to Cairo for security reasons.

The African Champions League preliminary round continues on Wednesday with more first round fixtures.

Former winners, Club Africain, Orlando Pirates, Ismaily and Mamelodi Sundowns are amongst the sides in action.