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CAF Confederation Cup

African football legend, Rabah Madjer predicts intense Algerian clash in CAF Confederation Cup quarterfinals

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Algerian football legend Rabah Madjer has described the upcoming CAF Confederation Cup quarter-final clash between USM Alger and CS Constantine as a highly unpredictable encounter.

Speaking following Thursday’s draw in the studios of beIN Sports, Madjer highlighted the unique challenge posed by the all-Algerian matchup, noting that both teams are familiar with each other’s tactics and style, having competed against each other in the domestic league.

“The match will be beyond expectations because each team is an open book to the other, and both know all the information about the competitor, especially since they play in the local league,” Madjer said.

The quarter-final draw for the CAF Confederation Cup, held in Doha on Thursday, also saw defending champions Zamalek of Egypt paired against South African debutants Stellenbosch, while last season’s runners-up, Morocco’s RS Berkane, will face Ivorian giants ASEC Mimosas.

The final quarter-final tie will see Egyptian club Al Masry take on Tanzania’s Simba SC in a bid for a place in the last four.

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Quarter-Final Fixtures:

  • Stellenbosch (South Africa) vs. Zamalek (Egypt)
  • ASEC Mimosas (Cote d’Ivoire) vs. RS Berkane (Morocco)
  • Simba SC (Tanzania) vs. Al Masry (Egypt)
  • CS Constantine (Algeria) vs. USM Alger (Algeria)

The quarter-final matches will be played over two legs, scheduled for April 2 and April 9. The first leg will take place at the home ground of the team listed first in the draw.

Path to the Semi-Finals

The winner of the ASEC vs. RS Berkane clash will face the victor of the all-Algerian showdown between USM Alger and CS Constantine in the semi-finals.

Meanwhile, the winner of the Stellenbosch vs. Zamalek tie will meet the winner of the Al Masry vs. Simba encounter in the last four.

Madjer also weighed in on the overall competition, tipping last season’s finalists, Zamalek and RS Berkane, as the teams most likely to go the distance.

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“The confrontations will be difficult by all standards for all teams, but Zamalek and Renaissance Berkane of Morocco, the two finalists of the last edition, are the candidates to go far,” he stated.

Egyptian teams have faced tough challenges against South African opposition in recent years, adding further intrigue to Zamalek’s quarter-final matchup against Stellenbosch.

With the competition heating up, the Confederation Cup knockout rounds promise to deliver high-intensity football as the continent’s top clubs battle for continental supremacy.

-CAF

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Kunle Solaja is the author of landmark books on sports and journalism as well as being a multiple award-winning journalist and editor of long standing. He is easily Nigeria’s foremost soccer diarist and Africa's most capped FIFA World Cup journalist, having attended all FIFA World Cup finals from Italia ’90 to Qatar 2022. He was honoured at the Qatar 2022 World Cup by FIFA and AIPS.

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CAF Confederation Cup

CAF adjudges Morocco’s Youssef Mehri’s goal as the fastest in football history

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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.

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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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CAF Confederation Cup

Tension in the air as Morocco’s RS Berkane fly to Algeria this Friday

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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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CAS upholds Algerian appeal in football shirt map dispute

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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.

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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.”

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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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