A Defeat in Johannesburg

Al Ahly’s football first team lost to Mamelodi Sundowns 1-0 on Saturday in Matchday 4 of the CAF Champions League group stage at FNB Stadium in Johannesburg. 

First Half

The game started with the Red Eagles pushing forward to score the early opener. 
In the 19th minute, Percy Tau tried his luck and fired a shot from the edge of the box, but the ball went directly to the keeper’s hands. 

In the 23rd minute, Peter Shalulile scored a goal to make it 1-0 for the hosts.

Our players upped their pressure afterward to equalize the score, but the South African team managed to block our attempts. 

With the 35th minute on the clock, we had another chance as Ali Maaloul fired another shot from the left flank, but his efforts went over the bar. 

Two minutes later, Karim Fouad was forced to leave the pitch and Taher Mohamed Taher joined instead of him.

Second Half 

Our head coach used his bench once again to add more attacking power to the team, as Ahmed Abdelkader, Ayman Ashraf, and Hossam Hassan joined the field instead of Mohamed Abdelmonem, Percy Tau, and Aliou Dieng.  

Mamelodi Sundowns kept pushing to add another goal, but our defenders stood their ground. 

Despite that our players were suffering from fatigue, they kept pushing forward in the last 15 minutes of the game to equalize the score, but the opponent’s defenders managed to block all our attempts and the match ended with a victory for the hosts.

We are on 4 points after four games in the group stage but we still have two games remaining against Al Merrikh and Al Hilal respectively and we need to get the best out of the two matches to book our place in the second round.