Heartland FC will seek to become only the second club from Africa's most populous nation to win the CAF Champions League when they host TP Mazembe Englebert of Congo DR in the first leg of the continental final on Sunday. The Nigerian club will be desperate to build a decent lead at the Owerri showdown ahead of next weekend's return in Lubumbashi.

Only one other Nigerian side has ever won the top club prize in African football, with Enyimba claiming glory in 2003 and 2004 to mark a long-awaited breakthrough for the giant west African country. However, Heartland have come close before and will now seeking to take that decisive step in the direction of the winners' rostrum.

Before they changed their name from Iwuanyanwu Nationale, Heartland were finalists in the old-style CAF Champions Cup in 1988 and later bounced back from the tragedy of losing two players in an air crash in 1994 on their way back from a match in Tunisia. Such adversity has built a unity at the club which captain Thankgod Ike hopes will prove crucial to their bid for glory.

The spirit in the camp is very high and we hope to use it to good effect when we meet them in Owerri.
Heartland FC captain Thankgod Ike

"The spirit in the camp is very high and we hope to use it to good effect when we meet them in Owerri," said Ike, whose side strolled through the semifinals with an emphatic 5-0 aggregate win over compatriots Kano Pillars. Top scorer Uche Agba, who has six goals to his name in this year's Champions League campaign, adds succinctly: "We want to win this trophy."

For coach Kelechi Emetole, Sunday's match also offers the chance to complete a continental quest seven years on from laying the foundations for Enyimba's initial success. He, after all, was in charge when they won the Nigerian Premier League title in 2002 to qualify for the Champions League, but did not stay for their continental triumph the following year.

Emetole, who has also been coach of Nigeria's beach soccer side at recent FIFA Beach Soccer World Cups, will be pitting his wits against the Frenchman Diego Garzitto, who has had his team training in Zimbabwe over the last days before heading off to Nigeria on Friday. "We had been looking for some good performances to boost our morale before the final," Garzitto said of wins over two clubs teams in Harare.

Heartland FC were the first of the four clubs to progress from their league phase in September, although they eventually finished second in their group behind Mazembe. The two sides cancelled each other out in their respective Group B games, with Heartland winning 2-0 in Owerri in September after Mazembe had prevailed by the same scoreline in Lubumbashi in their opening group match three months earlier.

The second leg of the final will be played in the southern Congolese city on 7 November.