CAF Confederation Cup
CAF Confederation Cup awaits new winner
A new name will be engraved on the CAF Confederation Cup trophy this season as the Moroccan near monopoly of the competition comes to an end.
In the semi-final first legs on Wednesday, Young Africans of Tanzania host Marumo Gallants of South Africa and ASEC Mimosas of the Ivory Coast entertain USM Alger of Algeria.
The line-up contains several surprise qualifiers and is unusual in that the dominant region in African club football — the north — has only one representative.
Moroccan clubs Raja Casablanca and Renaissance Berkane each won two of the previous five finals with Egyptian outfit Zamalek the other side to win the African equivalent of the Europa League.
AFP Sport introduces some of the stars who could play key roles in deciding which teams advance to the final.
Menacing Mayele
Young Africans forward Fiston Mayele has scored 12 goals this season in the two CAF club competitions — the Champions League and Confederation Cup.
A 28-year-old from the Democratic Republic of Congo, he bagged seven goals in the Champions League, including two hat-tricks.
When the Dar es Salaam outfit were demoted to the Confederation Cup, he continued to torment rivals, scoring the two goals that eliminated Rivers United of Nigeria in the last round.
Red-hot Chivaviro
Ranga Chivaviro of Marumo is the joint leading scorer in the Confederation Cup with six goals, and will appreciate the hot weather forecast for the first leg against Young Africans.
“I spent six months playing for a club in Kosovo two years ago and could not get used to the cold conditions,” said the 30-year-old.
His quarter-final first-leg header against Pyramids in Egypt earned Gallants an unexpected draw, and a solitary goal gave the South Africans victory in the return match.
Twin threats
It is 24 years since ASEC last experienced African glory by defeating Tunisian giants Esperance to lift the CAF Super Cup one season after winning the CAF Champions League.
Now, the goals of Aubin Kramo and Pacome Zouzoua have brought the Abidjan outfit to the brink of another final appearance.
Kramo has netted four times and Zouzoua on three occasions as ASEC hope to become the third west African winners of the competition after Hearts of Oak from Ghana and Stade Malien of Mali.
Beware Mahious
Sharpshooter Aymen Mahious experienced heartbreak this year as hosts Algeria lost a penalty shootout against Senegal in the African Nations Championship (CHAN) final.
He was one the stand-out players in the tournament for home-based stars, scoring the only goal in each of three group victories and winning the Golden Boot with five goals.
Mahious has proven equally threatening in the Confederation Cup by netting three times — one of four USM players to achieve that feat in the African campaign.
History seekers
Young Africans, Marumo, ASEC and USM are carrying the hopes of four countries who have never lifted the Confederation Cup since its introduction in 2004.
South African clubs Orlando Pirates (twice) and SuperSport United have lost finals while a similar fate befell Algerian trio Entente Setif, Mouloudia Bejaia and JS Kabylie.
Sewe Sport were the only finalists from the Ivory Coast, losing to Egyptian giants Al Ahly in 2014, while Young Africans are the first Tanzanian side to get beyond the quarter-finals.
-AFP
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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