Al Ahly were crowned Caf Champions League champions for the 11th time following their 3-2 aggregate victory over Wydad Casablanca in the final.
Mohamed Abdelmonem’s goal erased the lead that Yahia Attiyat Allah had given to the defending champions. This gave the Cairo club a 3-2 victory on aggregate after taking a 2-1 lead in the first leg seven days earlier.
Wydad’s loss ended a run of two final wins over Ahly, and they paid the price for focusing on protecting their small lead in the second leg instead of trying to score more goals.
In African club competitions, when both teams score the same number of goals overall, away goals count twice. If Wydad had won 1-0, they would have kept the trophy.
Ahly won a record $4 million, and Marcel Koller became the first Swiss coach to win the top African club competition.
It was Ahly’s third Champions League win in four years. In 2020, they beat fellow Egyptian team Zamalek, and the next year, they beat South African team Kaizer Chiefs.
Wydad made two changes to the team that played the first leg in Cairo last week. Reda Jaadi and Zouhair el Moutaraji were replaced by attackers Mohamed Ounajem and Saifeddine Bouhra.
Ounajem was on the Wydad team that beat Ahly in the 2017 final, and Bouhra scored last Sunday after coming in as a late substitute.
Ahly made one change. First-choice custodian Mohamed el Shenawy came back in place of Ahmed Shobeir because he was healthy again.
The second leg was the 13th time that these two big clubs from Africa had met in the Champions League. Ahly was ahead 5-3, and four of the games had been tied.
Patrice Motsepe, a South African billionaire and president of the Confederation of African Football (CAF), was in the full crowd at the 65,000-seat Stade Mohammed V.
For Ethiopian referee Bamlak Tessema Weyesa, it was a big deal because it was his last game before he retired at age 42 after 14 years of working international games.
As the first half started, a bad thing about African football showed up again: green lasers were pointed at the visiting team to try to distract them.
Just after 10 minutes, Moroccan Ayoub el Amloud had the first clear chance, but after a beautiful dribble into the box, his weak, off-target shot was not a threat.
Mahmoud Kahraba, Percy Tau (from South Africa), and Hussein el Shahat were the strikers for Ahly. They had scored 15 Champions League goals before the second leg, but Wydad didn’t give them much trouble early on.
Wydad broke the tie when a free kick from Attiyat Allah near the sideline floated into the goal, past El Shenawy, and into the far corner of the net.
Ahly didn’t get any closer to tying the game before halftime, and their frustration led to yellow cards for Kahraba, El Shahat, and Bouhra for wasting time.
No one was happier when the 51-minute first half was over than the referee, who had a hard time keeping some angry Moroccans and Egyptians under control.
Halfway through the second half, smoke from flares made it hard to see, so the game was stopped for a while.
Wydad took the lead with a set piece, and Abdelmonem tied the game with a stunning header into the far corner from a corner kick by Ali Maaloul.
Ahly had a lot of possession in the second half, but they didn’t really threaten Youssef el Motie before Wydad tied the game.
Photo by Weam Mostafa/BackpagePix
