Al-Ahly 1-1 JS Kabylie: Canaries through to African Champions League semi final

JS Kabylie survived a hostile environment and an attacking onslaught from opponents Al-Ahly to draw 1-1 and qualify for the last four of the 2010 African Champions League.

A wonderful strike from Canaries’ Saad Tedjar cancelled out Mohammed ‘Gedo’ Nagy’s opening goal in Cairo to maintain JS Kabylie’s unbeaten record in the mini-league phase and become the first team to qualify for this season’s semi-finals.

Despite going a man down in the first half after Sid Ali Yahia-Cherif was sent off before half time, the Algerians handled the pressure of a frenzied environment in Egypt to earn their point, putting on an impressive show of defensive resilience in the face of wave after wave of Al-Ahly attacking football.

As we highlighted in our feature on this game, Algerian and Egyptian football teams never get on at the best of times, and after a controversial and fiercely contested first game in Tizi-Ouzou won 1-0 by JS Kabylie, Al-Ahly were looking for revenge. That game in Algeria was marred by several unsavoury incidents.

Al-Ahly’s team bus was stoned, the players had to wait in their dressing room for hours after the game for JS Kabylie’s fans to leave the stadium, and a number of dubious refereeing decisions caused controversy and prompted Al-Ahly’s Ahmed Hassan to claim he would “never visit Algeria again under any circumstances.”

With 74,000 supporters in attendance at the Cairo International Stadium in Egypt, Al-Ahly’s fans drummed up a hostile atmosphere of their own, though a lot of the pre-match build-up was about dampening down the increasing levels of animosity between the two nations.

JS Kabylie have proved themselves one of Africa’s finest club teams with their excellent performances this season, and their counter-attacking style away has seen them prosper away from home. Here the tone was set; Al-Ahly with their quick passing and pressing game, JS Kabylie looking to sit deep and hit them on the counter.

The game was a high tempo affair, as was expected given the rivalry, and Al-Ahly, with home advantage, had the better of it early on. Gedo’s headed goal saw the Red Devils profit from their early dominance. However, Tedjar’s magnificently struck effort tied the game. After his free-kick rebounded back to him, Tedjar simply blasted the ball home, with a message of defiance to the packed home crowd crammed into his celebration.

The Canaries went down to ten men after 44 minutes, when Yahia-Cherif saw a second yellow, hence red for simulation. In the second half JS Kabylie were put under increasing pressure by Al-Ahly, who with seasoned internationals like Gedo, Ahmed Fathi, Mohamed Barakat, Wael Gomaa and Mohamed Aboutreika in their team dominated possession, even without making the most of it through chances created.

However, staunch defending from Iddrissa Coulibaly and Nassim Oussalah, alongside some wonderful saves by Malik Asselah including a vital stop in the last minute from Osama Hosny’s header, gave JS Kabylie the point they needed sending the Algerians through to the last four.

Elsewhere in Group B of the African Champions League Nigeria’s Heartland poured further misery on Egyptian teams by beating Ismailia 2-1, leaving the group wide open with Al-Ahly (5 points), Heartland (4 points) and Ismailia (3 points) all fighting for that second semi-final berth. In Group A, one-time champions Espérance of Tunisia and holders TP Mazembe lead the way with two further group games remaining.

Goals from Al-Ahly 1-1 JS Kabylie can be seen in the video below.

African Champions League, African Football, Al-Ahly, Algeria, Egypt, Esperance, Heartland FC, JS Kabylie, TP Mazembe