Beirut (AFP)
One of the two Lebanese football poles, Al-Ansar and Al-Najma, will have the opportunity to save the season, when they meet today at the “President Fouad Chehab” stadium in Jounieh in the final of the local cup competition.
Al-Ahed had reclaimed the league title from Al-Ansar about a month ago, and thus the “Green Leader” will enter the final meeting of the longest season ever, with the hope of preserving the second title in terms of importance and consolidating its record, as it was crowned last year for the 15th time in its history. As for his arch-rivals, Al-Nahiri is looking for his first official title since 2016, when he won the same competition for the sixth time.
The two teams did not present an ideal season, as Al-Ansar suffered a technical crisis at the start of the season that kept it from the league title, which it lost to the “Yellow Genie” later. Contributed to improving the team’s results in the second round of the championship (the two hexagons) until the team finished in second place.
Al-Zaeem failed to get past the group stage in the AFC Cup, by finishing the first group with one point behind Al-Seeb of Oman, Al-Kuwait Al-Kuwaiti and the Syrian Jableh.
But the team possesses the ingredients for victory through the presence of a large group of distinguished players, led by the captain of the Lebanese national team, Hassan Maatouk and Nader Matar, and to a group of good strikers such as Ahmed Hegazy, Karim Darwish, Khaled Mohsen, Majed Othman and Fayez Shamsin.
Before reaching the final match, Al-Ansar outperformed Al-Shabab Al-Ghazia of the second degree 3-0, then Al-Salam swept Zgharta (also second degree) with a clean six, and in the semi-finals they overcame Al-Burj on penalties 3-2 after they tied negatively in the original time .