Top of the group...
fans of Wydad watch
their team defeat
Zamalek of Egypt
in CasablancaDejected...Al Ahly coach Pitso Mosimane lost
twice against his former club SundownsWORLD SERVICEAhly, however, were feeling the effects
of an exhausting schedule, stretching all
the way back to December when nine
of their players went off to compete in
the Arab Cup. A similar number then
went straight onto the Africa Cup of
Nations finals, were rushed back to
compete in the Club World Cup in Abu
Dhabi, and then into the Champions
League group phase and catch-up
matches in their domestic programme.
Ahly looked utterly exhausted when
Sundowns beat them1-0 home and
away but they still finished runners-up,
seeing off Al Hilal Omdurman of Sudan
in their last group match to make sure
of their progress to the last eight.
Esperance, Raja and their Casablanca
neighbours Wydad were the other group
winners and will get home advantage in
the quarter-finals.
Raja and Wydad won five and lost
one in their respective groups to also
set new record for themselves, while
Esperance ended unbeaten in Group C
with four victories and two stalemates.
It makes for a formidable field now
for the knockout stages where Chabab
Belouizdad and Entente Setif of Algeria
and Angola’s Petro Atletico are also
through.
Seven of the eight quarter-final
places were decided before the final
matchday at the start of April, with
holders Al Ahly the last to claim their
place. Needing only a home draw,
they struggled through the home
game against Al Hilal before substitute
Hussein El Shahat scored16 minutes
from time for a respectable finish.
Six of the eight contenders for this
season’s Champions League title come
from North Africa, again emphasising
the dominance of clubs from the
Arabic-speaking belt at the top of
the continent and giving this season’s
competitionanairofpredictability.
Butnow,allbetsareoffasthe
competition heads into the knockout
phase, culminating in the final in late
May at a venue yet to be decided by
Confederation of African Football.
The South African Football
Association are one of the bidders for
the right to stage the game, banking on
Sundowns going all the way and seeking
to give them some advantage should
they make the decider.
But for all of their proficiency in
the group
phase, they
have been
eliminated in
the last two
quarter-finals
and the semi-
final in 2019,
after famously thrashing Al Ahly 5-0
at home in the last eight.
In the African Confederation Cup,
there are five teams from North African
countries advancing to the quarter-
finals and three from countries south
of the Sahara – Orlando Pirates of
South Africa, TP Mazembe of the
Democratic Republic of Congo
and Tanzania’s Simba.
Three-time winners CS Sfaxien from
Tunisia did not make it through and
there was a dose of reality for RoyalThe South African club became the
first team since the group competition
started in 1997 to amass 16 points
from their six matchesLeopard, the police team from tiny
Eswatini. After the excitement of
eliminating last season’s runners-up
JS Kabylie, they lost all six of their group
matches and were forced to host their
“home” games in neighbouring South
Africa because there were no stadia
suitable for use in the small kingdom.
There were no teams as dominant
in the group phase as there were in the
Champions League and no unbeaten
sides either in the continent’s second
competition.THE FINAL STANDINGS
Team P W D L GD Pts
1 Mamelodi Sundowns6510+816
2AlAhly 6312+210
3 Al Hilal Omdurman6114-44
4 Al Merrikh 6114-64GROUP ATeam P W D L GD Pts
1Raja 6501+515
2 ES Setif 6 3 0 3 +1 9
3AmaZulu 6213-37
4Horoya 6114-34GROUP BTeam P W D L GD Pts
1 Esperance 6 4 2 0 +10 14
2 CR Belouizdad 6 3 2 1 +5 11
3EtoileduSahel6132-36
4 Jwaneng Galaxy 6015-121GROUP CTeam P W D L GD Pts
1Wydad 6501+1015
2 Petro de Luanda 6321+111
3 Zamalek 6042-34
4 Sagrada Esperanca 6024-82GROUP D