Leon had his 35th-minute spot kick stopped by visiting goalkeeper Bechir Ben Said, but snapped up the rebound to ensure a 1-0 home win at Loftus Versfeld.
Leon had scored the only goal of last Sunday’s first leg in Tunis, and the 2-0 aggregate triumph means Sundowns are through to the final for a second successive season.
A fourth final
Sundowns have reached the Champions League final for the fourth time and will now hope for a second star to put above their badge.
They lost to Al Ahly in the 2001 decider, before famously beating Zamalek in the 2016 final.
Coach Miguel Cardoso will still be wondering how they lost to Pyramids in last year’s two-legged final, but they have a chance to make amends in the 2025/26 season, and he will know anything but the trophy will be viewed as not good enough.
Leon scores again
Sundowns were awarded the penalty after a throw-in back to Ben Said saw the goalkeeper caught napping as he tried to clear, with Leon sprinting down on him and getting a touch to the ball before the keeper made contact with him as he attempted to kick clear. It was cleared by VAR, though it may have missed the ball also hitting Leon’s arm, albeit after Ben Said had made contact with him.
Leon now has 10 goals in 11 starts, and 19 appearances overall, a very good return on investment for The Brazilians.
He is now the joint second-highest scorer in the Champions League this season behind Al Ahly’s Trézéguet.
Few chances
Sundowns forced several good saves from Ben Said, while Esperance came closest to an equaliser minutes before half-time when an effort off the legs of French striker Florin Danho struck the Sundowns crossbar.
In all, the home side had five shots on target in the game and Esperance only two, while Sundowns also dominated possession with 58%.
Coach’s hat-trick
Sundowns coach Miguel Cardoso is heading to his third successive Champions League final, his second with Sundowns, after being on the losing side with Esperance against Al Ahly in 2024.
The Portuguese is the first coach to lead Sundowns to more than one final and has never lost in the six meetings between the two clubs in which he has been involved.
As coach of Esperance, he beat Sundowns home and away in the semi-final in 2024, and last year led Sundowns to a 1-0 home win and a 0-0 away draw against the Tunisian side in the quarter-finals. All five of Cardoso’s wins in this fixture have been 1-0 victories.
Who do Sundowns meet next?
They will take on either Morocco’s Royal Armed Forces or Renaissance Berkane, who meet later on Saturday with the military side 2-0 up from last weekend’s first leg in Rabat.
Royal Armed Forces reached the quarter-finals last season but were eliminated by Pyramids, who went on to win the title at Sundowns’ expense. The Moroccan club won the old-style Champions Cup back in 1985.
Renaissance Berkane are competing in the Champions League for the first time this season but have already won three African Confederation Cup titles.
Club World Cup
The Champions League winner is guaranteed a place in the field for the next Club World Cup in 2029. There will be four African teams at the tournament, whose host is still to be decided.
The quartet from the continent will be the winners of each of the Champions League titles from 2025 to 2028. That means Pyramids have already qualified, and the next three winners will also go to the tournament, which has lucrative earnings for the competitors.
If a club wins more than one title over those four tournaments, then a place will be awarded to the club or clubs with the next-best results over the four-year period, which is how Sundowns and Esperance qualified for last year’s Club World Cup in the United States.
