Football Journey: July 2020

Sunday, July 26, 2020

African Champions' Cup

African Champions' Cup. Nothing new... UDIB (Guinea Bissau) did not play a single game – it qualified to the first round because East End Lions (Sierra Leone) withdrew before the first leg and then withdrew itself before playing the first leg against FAR Rabat (Morocco) in the first round. ASC Ksar (Mauritania) also withdrew in the preliminary round.  Maji Maji (Tanzania) withdrew as well in the first round, but they at least played one match, losing 1-5 to Dynamos (Harrare, Zimbabwe). After that there were no more withdrawels, eliminatios rounds went one after another and in the semifinals Canon Yaounde (Cameroon) lost to Zamalek (Egypt) 2-1 and 0-2. In the other semifinal away goal decided the outcome: Nkana Red Devils (Zambia) fatally tied its home leg against Africa Sports (Cote d'Ivoire) 1-1. The second match ended 0-0 and Africa Sports reached the final.
 The final was real drama, as football should be. In Cairo, Zamalek won 2-0, but in Abijan Africa Sports won with the same result.



Overtime did not change anything, so it came to penalty shoot-out. 


Lottery or not, Africa Sports was in better position, for they were playing in front of home crowd. But it was not to be their day: the Egyptians prevailed 4-2. 


Zamalek triumphed with the Cup and looks like not only shirts were exchanged after the end of the game, but also shorts – two Egyptian players here sport Africa Sports' shorts. Strange, but there was a brief fad in changing shorts in the middle of the 1980s. 


Unlucky Africa Sports – they did everything they could, but lost. Depending on point of view, they either had tough opponents on the road to the final, or were a bit shaky team, especially when it came to scoring. They qualified to the second round after penalty shoot out and twice qualified thanks to away goals. Only in the 1/8 finals they had a big victory – 5-0 against New Nigeria Bank (Nigeria), but lost the second leg 0-2. Seemingly, there was little something missing – perhaps that was why they did not win the trophy. 


Zamalek had wonderful campaign and no problems until the semifinals – but they played admirably against one of the tradtional African powers, Canon (Yaounde), reached the final, and managed to prevail over Africa Sports on their home turf. Zamalek won its second Champions' Cup, all in three years time.