CAF Confederation Cup
Confederation Cup path to Uyo is finalised today
The second leg semifinals for the CAF Confederation Cup will take place on Sunday and the aggregate winners will book a ticket for the great final in Uyo, Nigeria.
TP Mazembe and Orlando Pirates secured first leg wins a week earlier, but Berkane and Al Ahli Tripoli have not said their last word.
Renaissance Berkane v TP Mazembe, Stade Municipal de Berkane, 19h00 GMT
Once more, Berkane suffered a bad result last week in Lubumbashi. Despite a solid match, the Moroccans lost to Mazembe late goal. An away- defeat that Florent Ibenge’s men can regret. Playing home on Sunday, Berkane will have to be realistic. They absolutely need a victory to move to the final but first, they will need to equalize on the aggregate score.
After their title in 2020, Berkane want to repeat the feat by winning CAF Confederation Cup trophy again. They will need to attack quickly against Mazembe. Almost non-existent during the first leg, forwards Chadrack Muzungu or El Bahri will be able to benefit from the support of their public.
Meanwhile, the scenario seems perfect for the Ravens. With their 1-0 victory in the first leg, they have plenty to see coming. Leave the game to Berkane who must score and proceed with counterattacks, the different strategies must be running through the head of coach Franck Dumas. But unlike Berkane, Mazembe travel quite well on the continent. With all their experience in interclub competitions, the Congolese know how to obtain results far from their base.
Orlando Pirates v Al Ahli Tripoli, Orlando Stadium, Johannesburg, 16h00 GMT
The work seems to have been done during the first. But in football, you should never take a result for granted when the match is still on. Orlando Pirates achieved the best operation by winning 2-0 last week. Even if the predictions seem now in favor of the Buccaneers, one should not bury the Liyan side too soon.
Ghanaian goalkeeper Richard Ofori is one of the greatest assets of the Pirates’ weapons. His statistics are clear with 6 games, 5 clean sheets and only one goal conceded from the penalty spot. His compatriot Kwame Prepah brings many difficulties to the opponents. The South Africans are close to another interclub final after reaching 2017 Champions League final.
Will Al Ahli Tripoli give up without a real fight? The Libyan side have had a great competition so far. But on the way, the Tripoli men have lacked resources, challenged by the Pirates who quickly scored two goals. They will now have to find solutions against a team that is difficult to move at home. But Al Ahli Tripoli have shown that they can weaken the best teams this season.
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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