Esperance defender Harrison Afful is relishing another grueling encounter with CS Sfaxien after the Tunisian giants were drawn against each other in the CAF Champions League.

The Blood and Gold will be coming up against their biggest rivals once more again in the group stage of Africa’s premier club competition.

Esperance beat Sfaxien in an enticing game in the league earlier on this season with their Ghanaian defender Harrison Afful scoring the winner.

The Black Stars left-back however believes his side will have to dig even deeper to reign supreme over their rivals once more again in the Champions League.

“Such games are special and a lot of surprises happen,” Afful told GHANAsoccernet.com after Tuesday’s draw.

“We are very focused, we’ve beaten them in the league and we are not going to have it easy this time around.

“So let’s wait and see what will happen on that day.”

Sfaxien are however just one of Esperance’s headaches in the crack group full of teams from Northern Africa.

The two-time African champions are well aware of the enormous task ahead in also facing ES Setif and Al Ahli Benghazi as they look to make it out of the tough group.

“They are all good sides and they’ve made it into the group stages so that makes it difficult and we respect all our opponents,” the Ghana defender admits.

“But we also believe in ourselves and believe we are good enough to make it through to the next stage.”