{"id":4070,"date":"2024-05-12T22:11:12","date_gmt":"2024-05-12T21:11:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/?p=4070"},"modified":"2024-05-12T22:13:09","modified_gmt":"2024-05-12T21:13:09","slug":"50-50","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/2024\/05\/12\/50-50\/","title":{"rendered":"50\/50<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Satish Sekar \u00a9 Satish Sekar (April 25th<\/sup> 2024)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Evenly Poised<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Defending CAF Champions League champions, Al-Ahly, host the top team ever produced by the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), TP (Tout Puissant) Mazembe tomorrow night with the tie evenly poised after a 0-0 draw in the first leg in Lubumbashi (formerly \u00c9lisabethville).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Former Grasshoppers and Switzerland midfielder, Marcel Koller, has coached Al Ahly since 2022. He has previously coached Grasshoppers, Basel, Austria ad FC K\u00f6ln, among others. Ahly is his first sojourn into coaching in Africa. Koller won the CAF Champions League against Wydad Athletic Club last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThings were very difficult for us in the first leg in Lubumbashi,\u201d Al-Ahly\u2019s coach, Marcel Koller, told journalists at Cairo International Stadium at the 11 times African clubs champions\u2019 pre-match press conference. \u201cThe sun was too hot. We missed some key players and also the playing field was terrible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s still 50-50 for both teams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI believe that with the support of our fans tomorrow, we can achieve another Champions League final.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

South African talisman Percy Tau has been injured but is expected to make his return for the second leg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am happy Percy Tau is back but some other players will be back from injury too and the final training session today will determine it,\u201d Koller said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Goals<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

TP Mazembe is one of the few giants of African football to be coached by a top African coach \u2013 Ahly achieved success with that through South Africa\u2019s Pitso Mosimane, one of the few African coaches to taste Champions Clubs success with two different teams \u2013 Mamelodi Sundowns in 2016 against Zamalek and Al-Ahly in 2020 and 2021 against Zamalek and Kaiser Chiefs respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mosimane left Al-Ahly in 2022, replaced by Koller. Meanwhile, TP Mazembe has a top African coach, the S\u00e9n\u00e9galese, Lamine N\u2019Diaye. In his second spell as coach of TP Mazembe, the former midfielder, has coached S\u00e9n\u00e9gal, Sudan\u2019s Al-Hilal and Guinea\u2019s Horoya, among others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

N\u2019Diaye sounded a cautious note at his press conference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe suffered and missed a number of key players in the first leg just like Al Ahly, but big clubs are not affected by these things,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur goal is to win the Champions League and we will play to win tomorrow and qualify for the final.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Satish Sekar \u00a9 Satish Sekar (April 25th 2024) Evenly Poised Defending CAF Champions League champions, Al-Ahly, host the top team ever produced by the Democratic [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16],"tags":[713,716,751,750,752,749,714],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4070"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4070"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4070\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4071,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4070\/revisions\/4071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}