We are in the midst of a photo finish in the Egyptian football league. Ahly and Ismaili, tied at 60 points, one game left for each. It s one of the closest races in years.
Six years to be exact. The last down- to-the-wire was in 2003 when Zamalek nipped Ahly by one point on the final day of the season. What followed, starting from 2005, was near total domination by Ahly. In the past four years, the Cairo club have come first, ahead of the second place team by 31 points, 14, 5 and 17 respectively.
There are 10 reasons why, after ruling the roost for so long in such commanding fashion, Ahly suddenly find themselves in a fight to the finish. In no specific order, they are: The departure of key players; injuries; players who have aged; players playing too many games; players under too much pressure to constantly win; new players who are not good enough to play for the defending champions; new players who are good enough but not used enough; a coach no longer able to motivate his players; a coach no longer able to motivate himself; and the emergence of other teams capable of putting up a fight.
No club of any nationality could have all this happen to it, all at the same time, and not trip up. In fact, it is testimony to Ahly s pedigree that they have not all together sunk. That they are still in the thick of things goes to the caliber of players Ahly still possesses and their coach who they will not possess for much longer. The announcement last week of the imminent departure of Portuguese Manuel Jose rocked Ahly and the football establishment. Jose s two stints with the club, totaling six and a half years, produced 18 major football crowns, including four of their six African Champions Leagues. Along with a record three appearances in the World Club Championship, including a third place finish in 2006, makes Jose the most successful club coach Egypt has ever had.
But Jose had found it exceedingly difficult to rally his troops and himself. Ominous signs loomed. For the past two years, Ahly had been winning even while playing poorly. But the law of averages, which says you cannot play as such and get such results forever, started to catch up. Ahly continued to play below par but this time started losing, culminating with the abysmal last place finish in the World Club Championship in December when they were expected to contest the final with Manchester United.
Then came Ahly s recent embarrassing ouster from round 16 of the African Champions League. The defending champions, six-time winners of the event, had been ingloriously upended very early in the tournament, by a set of Nigerian players no one except their parents ever heard of, and the undoing came in Cairo, not Kaduna.
Unable to stop this precipitous drop, Jose is leaving because it is time. He knows it, as does Ahly. If the club had really wanted Jose to stay, they would have said something like: Wait a minute, Mr. Jose. Now just calm down. Go home, have a good night s sleep. Things always look different in the morning. Come back and we ll sit down and talk about it over breakfast. Ahly said nothing of the sort. When Jose tendered his resignation, the club said okay .
Ahly s abrupt reply was also in no small part due to the offer made to Jose by Angola which could not be beat. Leaving one year before his contract expires, Jose will now be making ?150,000 a month, nearly double what he was making at Ahly.
Jose will want to go out with a bang and will get his chance for one last hooray when Ahly meets middle of the table Gaish on Wednesday, the day when Ismaili takes on relegated Tersana. There are three reasons why Ismaili should not be where they are at present. They have been forced to play close to a third of their home games away from home because of crowd violence and consequent punishment by the FA and the refurbishing of their stadium in time for the U-20 World Cup in September; for the money , they always give away their best players, usually and ironically to Ahly; and their Brazilian coach Ricardo Ferreira was hired just this season. Still, they are in the hunt for their fourth league title.
Should, at the end of the day, the table toppers are still tied on points, they will meet in a climatic one-off playoff in neutral Alexandria on May 24.
It s going to the wire
