It’s Masters v Pupils in Cairo
Masters v Pupils in final
Posted: 2008-10-31 14:13
Sunday’s African Champions League final between hot favourites Al-Ahly of Egypt and outsiders Cotonsport Garoua of Cameroon is a classic masters-versus-pupils affair.
Star-studded Ahly will be featuring in the showcase of African club football for the eighth time and have emerged triumphant in five of seven previous finals since their first appearance 26 years ago.
Manuel Jose has guided the Cairo Red Devils to three of the titles and while his salary remains confidential, the 62-year-old Portuguese is widely believed to be the highest paid football club coach on the continent.
He commands an array of talent from Egypt, Angola and Tunisia that must be the envy of every coach tasked with plotting the downfall of the most successful and popular African football club.
Midfielder Mohamed Aboutreika is the best known star, combining skill and strength in the combat zone with an uncanny knack of being in the right place at the right time to score crucial goals.
It was tall, lean Aboutreika who delivered a record sixth African Nations Cup title to Egypt in Accra last February, driving a low shot into the net as time ticked away to settle a tense showdown against Cameroon.
If Aboutreika is the Ahly conductor, there is no shortage of talented support players like defenders Shady Mohamed and Ahmed al-Sayed, midfielders Mohamed Barakat and Felisberto 'Gilberto' Amaral and striker Flavio Amado.
After two byes, Ahly overcome Platinum Stars of South Africa in the final qualifying round, topped Dynamos of Zimbabwe, ASEC Mimosas of Ivory Coast and Zamalek of Egypt in Group B and edged Enyimba of Nigeria in the semi-finals.
Cotonsport have qualified for the final, which carries a first prize of one million dollars plus a place at the Fifa Club World Cup, after seven failed attempts to get beyond the qualifying phase.
But the team from the northern cotton town of Garoua are not complete strangers to the big time, losing to Raja Casablanca of Morocco five years ago in the last final of the third-tier CAF Cup for national league runners-up.
Cotonsport played six matches just to get beyond the qualifying stage, eliminating modest Vital’O of Burundi, African rookies Gombe United of Nigeria and a major scalp in twice African champions JS Kabylie of Algeria.
Inexperience and a lack of big-name stars meant few beyond Garoua felt they could survive, never mind win, a group containing two-time champions Enyimba and TP Mazembe of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Al-Hilal of Sudan.
Win they did, though, finishing one point above Enyimba after dishing out a three-goal hiding to the visiting Nigerians and then going on to win both legs of the semi-final against Dynamos.
Daouda Kamilou, one of several Niger-born players in the Garoua squad, has emerged as a key figure, claiming seven goals to lie second on the Champions League scorers chart behind runaway leader Stephen Worgu of Enyimba.
The achievements of Kamilou pale when compared to those of Aboutraika, however, and the masters of Ahly will be expected to build a winning lead on Sunday when they host the talented but unproven pupils of Cotonsport.
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