After a very strange match and yet a more strange result, El-Ahly managed to go to the quarter final of The African Champions League after a 2-2 draw with USMA of Algeria in their match that was held in the Military Academic stadium in the 2nd leg of the round of 16th. It is rather to be mentioned that 1st leg ended with a 1-0 victory for The Red Devils which took them to the quarter final.
Jose started the match with the usual formation having El-Hadary, Shady, El Nahas, Wael, Islam, Shawky, Hassan Moustafa, Gilberto, Barakat, Abou Treika and Meteeb.
The match started with strong attacks from the Red Side while the Algerian team counted on the counter attacks which caused some problems for the much “opened” Red defense.
This half witnessed a lot of missed chances for El-Ahly along with an uncounted penalty for Barakat while USMA players failed to create any real chances on El-Hadary’s goal.
But just 3 minutes before the end of the half, Dezerei took the ball from the right side in the absence of Gilberto and passed it to Hussein Achiou who managed to put it in the back of the net in the absence of the whole defense line.
After the goal, El-Ahly players attacked with all their strength as to score the equalizer before the end of the half and they managed to achieve that target through Emad El Nahas who managed to score a goal from a clear offside on Mohamed Shawky.
In the 2nd half, things did not change much and the attacks resumed from the Red Side which lead to the 2nd goal through Emad Meteeb who turned Barakat’s pass to the back of the net with a wonderful header.
This goal depressed USMA players which gave full control of the match to El-Ahly players who wasted a lot of chances thorugh Abou Treika, Ahmed Hassan and El-Nahas.
And just before the end of the match, and from a silly mistake from El-Hadary, USMA players managed to score the equalizer from a penalty kick followed by the referee’s whistle to end the match with El-Ahly’s qualification to the quarter final.
Congratulations for the qualification which we truly deserved, but many mistakes occurred in the match and such mistakes may cost us a lot in the coming games in which there will be no chance for a comeback!!!