CAF Confederation Cup
CAF CONFEDERATION CUP FINAL: CAN VITA CLUB CANCEL DEFICIT?
BY APESIN ADEMOLA.
Raja Casablanca go into the last match of CAF clubs 2018 season with high expectations to come out victorious and lift the title they last won in 2003, then known as CAF Cup.
The Moroccans have a 3-0 cushion achieved in the first leg in Casablanca a week ago
.
Reversing such a huge margin in the final is not common even as home teams deploy all tactics – fair and unfair – to overcome their visitors.
Three-time winners of the elite CAF Champions League, Raja understand how to hold their nerves in important fixtures. And their coach, Juan Carlos Garrido has refused to get carried away by the first leg result.
Shortly after beating Vita Club in Casablanca, Garrido told the media that his squad needed to concentrate on the second leg at Stade des Martyrs in Kinshasa.
“That match is going to be huge. Today (last Sunday), this match is over. As from tomorrow we have to start preparing for the return leg, which is the final. That match is definite.”
The Spaniard have a personal history in sight. He is on the verge of becoming the first ever coach to win this title with two clubs after his success with Egypt’s Al-Ahly four seasons ago.
Raja will be without striker Moussine Iajour who has been banned by CAF for three continental club matches over an incident at the end of last Sunday’s first leg fixture.
“Iajour was expelled at the end of the match for giving violent head shot to a player of AS Vita Club,” CAF statement reads.
But AS Vita coach Florent Ibenge is determined not to allow history repeat itself by cancelling the deficit and going ahead to win the club’s first continental trophy since 1973 when they were crowned African champions through the then African Cup of Champions Clubs (now CAF Champions League).
He believes that no two matches are the same, while admitting that the huge loss in Casablanca has made life complicated for this side.
“Even in training when a team leads by three goals to zero, the game is stopped because it is considered that the match is over. But we have seen in history scenarios that have redefined themselves in another way. Let’s hope and work to show another image better than the first leg.”
He may be banking on their performance in the semifinal when the Congolese club bashed Al-Masry SC of Egypt 4-0 in the second leg to land in the final by the same aggregate score.
Ibenge was in charge of Vita Club when they lost CAF Champions League final to Algeria’s ES Sétif four years ago.
Vita Club’s local rivals TP Mazembe won the last two editions of this competition. Will that inspire the Black Dolphins to achieve one of the greatest comebacks in the finals of CAF competitions to emulate their compatriots?
Fixture…
AS Vita Club (DR Congo) v Raja Casablanca (Morocco) (8pm)
(First leg Raja Casablanca 3-0)
CAF Confederation Cup
CAF adjudges Morocco’s Youssef Mehri’s goal as the fastest in football history
Moroccan club, Renaissance de Berkane, beat their Algerian counterparts, CS Constantine, 4-0 in the first leg of the CAF Confederation Cup semi-finals at the weekend.
The game got off to a dream start for the Moroccan club as it took Youssef Mehri less than a minute to open the scoring in the big win against the Algerians.
Officially, the goal is recorded to have been scored after 13 seconds.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), CAF remarks: “Youssef Mehri goes straight into the history books. The RS Berkane striker scores the fastest goal ever scored in the CAF Cup.”
A deeper search by Sports Village Square indicates that a Nigerian player, Paul Onuachu, had previously scored a faster goal, but not in a CAF Cup duel.
The basketball player-like footballer scored his first international goal in a 1-0 defeat of Egypt on 26 March 2019.
The goal inflicted Nigeria’s first defeat on Egypt in 29 years. But more significant was the timing of the goal. Onuachu, within eight seconds of kick-off, undoubtedly entered the record books as the second fastest goal in international football records after that of Germany’s Lukas Podolsk, who scored after six seconds in a friendly against Ecuador in 2013.
Fans had hardly settled down at the Stephen Keshi Stadium in Asaba for the Nigeria versus Egypt match when Onuachu released a thunderous shot that turned out to be the match’s decider.
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The Renaissance Sportive de Berkane delegation will travel to Algeria this Friday to face CS Constantine in the CAF Cup. Tension may be building up for the potentially explosive confrontation that could have a build-up from last year’s fixtures of the Moroccan club and another Algerian outfit, USM Algiers, in the CAF Confederation Cup.
A Moroccan news outlet, Sport.le360, reports that a Tunisian airline will operate the direct flight between Oujda-Angad Airport, which is located about 12 kilometres north of Oujda and about 600 kilometres northeast of Casablanca, near the Algerian border and Constantine Mohamed Boudiaf International Airport.
Last year, political differences between Morocco and Algeria scuttled similar semi-final clashes between clubs of both countries.
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The Court of Arbitration for Sport on Wednesday ruled in favour of the Algerian football federation in a row over a map of Morocco on shirts worn by Renaissance Berkane in the 2024 CAF Confederation Cup.
Algerian club USM Alger were kicked out of last year’s competition after both legs of their semi-final against Berkane were cancelled because of a diplomatic dispute.
Neither match took place as USMA and the Algerian authorities objected to a map of Morocco on the Berkane shirts which included Western Sahara.
Algeria cut diplomatic ties with North African neighbours Morocco in 2021, partly over the Western Sahara issue.
The former Spanish colony is largely controlled by Morocco but claimed by the Algeria-backed Polisario Front, which seeks the territory’s independence.
The Confederation of African Football awarded Berkane a 3-0 victory for both legs of the semi-final.
CAF at the time responded to an appeal by the Algerian FA by ruling in favour of Berkane, saying the club had been wearing the same jerseys since the start of the tournament.
But the Algerian FA took the case to sport’s highest court in Switzerland, which determined that the shirts in question were “contrary to CAF regulations, as they display a territorial map that is of a political nature.”
“The image of a map of Morocco including Western Sahara on the shirts of RS Berkane depicts a message, a demonstration or propaganda of a political nature as it represents the assertion of a territorial dispute that is contested and still unresolved as of today,” CAS said in a statement.
“By the laws of the game of the International Football Association Board, it is prohibited to convey any content of a political nature on all equipment, including shirts.”
CAS added that the initial decision by CAF to “maintain the approval of the shirts is annulled”, but the court said that it would have no effect on the results of the tournament.
Egypt’s Zamalek beat Berkane on away goals in the final.
-AFP
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