Cairo – Masrawy:
The Al-Ahly and Raja matches carry unforgettable stories and situations, before they meet once more today, Saturday, in an Arab classico that brings together two great players. Egypt والمغرب.
Al-Ahly will host Raja at ten in the evening at Al-Ahly WE Al-Salam Stadium, in the presence of 20,000 spectators, in the first leg of the quarter-finals of the African Champions League.
But among the stories and competition in the ball, several key scenes in the history of the two teams’ matches stand out:
Referee Murad Al-Daami and the first loss
In his first participation in the group stage following boycotting the African championships from 1994 and playing the 32nd return match of the 1998 championship with the substitutes and youth, Al-Ahly faced Morocco’s Raja for the first time in Africa on the third of September 1999 in the first round of the first group matches.
Al-Ahly had caused a knot for Raja following facing the final of the Arab Champions League, which was held inEgypt In 1996, winning 3-1 and then defeating him in the Mohammed V compound in 1997 in the Elite Championship 2-0, to crown the Reds with the second cup in a row at the expense of the Moroccan Green.
Al-Ahly dominated the match from the beginning, and the Moroccan team relied on counter-attacks led by its striker Bouchaib Mbarki, who wasted all of them, while Ali Maher missed all of Al-Ahly’s chances, and the crossbar was blocked by Alaa Ibrahim.
But the exciting moment was in the first quarter of an hour when Tunisian referee Mourad Al-Daami condoned a correct penalty kick by Sayed Abdel Hafeez following an intervention from Raja defender Talal Karkouri.
In the last minute, reversing the direction of play, Raja scored the only goal of the match through Mohamed Khabashi, so that the red team received the first loss in its history in the African Championship, and the Moroccan team achieved its first victory in its history once morest the Egyptian champion and returned its loss at home two years ago with two goals, Samir Kamouna and Hadi Khashaba.
Referee is wrong and unforgivable
In the last round of the same tournament, Al-Ahly, who needed to win in order to qualify for the final match, played with his brother, Moroccan Raja, on November 7, 1999, to face another mistake, as he played once morest 12 players for the owners of the land for two minutes.
And in the 77th minute of the match, Mohamed Khabashi, the Raja player, was injured and left the field to receive treatment, so his coach replaced him and pushed Adel Makki instead.
After the match, which ended in a 1-1 draw, the Al-Ahly administration advanced to win a protest to the African Union forfootball For violating the law of the game and claiming as a winner or replay.
CAF rejected Al-Ahly’s protest, as the referee or observer’s report did not include the incident, and the participation of the twelfth player will not affect the result during his participation period.
Al-Ahly needed to win the match to qualify for the final of the tournament, where the tie led to its second place with 10 points, compared to 11 points for the Moroccan team, which reached the final.
Remontada Boucherwan and Ness Amir
In the 2002 CAF Champions League, specifically on the 18th of October, Al-Ahly was ahead of Raja 3-1 before the last minute of the match, which was the biggest African victory for the red team, so that its Dutch coach, Joe Bonfrere, made a change by introducing the young goalkeeper Amir Abdel Hamid instead of Essam El-Hadary to receive the red Two consecutive goals in the 89th and 90th minutes, where Hicham Boucherwan scored the first goal from a solo and the second goal from a penalty kick he got following a touch by Sayed from Shady Mohamed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iy42b1LvVOE
The 2002 championship came as one of the worst versions in which Al-Ahly participated, as its group, unlike Raja, included TP Mazembe of the Congo and Jean Drac of Senegal, who won back and forth over the club Red is a result that has not been repeated (in the group stage) historically, except in the current version of Sundowns.
Thank you message for fair play
In the 2005 edition, Al-Ahly topped its group, which included Raja, Enyimba of Nigeria (the two-time champion) and Ajax Cape Town of South Africa. (who bid farewell to the tournament) in South Africa.
Al-Rajaa needed Al-Ahly’s victory over Enyimba with its victory over Ajax Cape Town, as the tie would advance the Nigerian team to the semi-finals because of its superiority in the direct confrontations in the two group matches.
Al-Ahly, who played on the bench on September 11, 2005, converted Enyimba 0-1 with the goal of Atenda Sakibo to a 2-1 victory with two goals from Osama Hosni, while Al-Raja won a clean treble scored by Mohsen Yagour, Sofiane Alloudi and Karim Fofuna, bringing the Moroccan team up due to Al-Ahly’s victory.
At the time, Raja Club issued a statement of thanks to the Al-Ahly administration and its team for upholding the principle of fair play.
