By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Tunisian authorities have authorized the presence of fans for the first leg of the African Champions League semi-final between Esperance of Tunis and Al Ahly on Saturday, which will be the first match with a public since the start of the pandemic in March 2020.
Some 5,000 people have been authorized to enter the 60,000-seat Rades stadium, the Tunisian Football Federation told AFP. They will all have to wear a mask and present a negative PCR test, Riadh Bennour, an executive of the Tunisian club, told private radio Mosaïque, adding that a free test cell will be opened Friday for ticket holders.
Esperance Sportive de Tunis head coach, Moïne Chaabani, said that his side are prepared to face Al Ahly in the CAF Champions League semi-finals.
“We can label the match between Esperance and AlAhly as the African Clasico. Any football fan in Africa or the Arab world will surely watch the match. The match that will witness a great effort from the players and will be characterized by sportsmanship,” the former Esperance defender said during the pre match press conference.
“Things are not decided from the first match unless the it’s a big result. In the semi-final coaches will work to finish things in the first match, but it will be a tactical confrontation at the highest level, and for me the match is 180 minutes in Tunisia and Cairo.
Mental, physical and tactical preparation is important for the 90 minutes. The most important thing is to focus from the first to the last minute. Regarding the physical aspect, we got a three-week rest and played just one match, so I imagine that we will be mentally and physically ready for the match.”
“We focused on many thing during the training camp, we have more than one plan for the match in the event of a red card or an attacking substitution.”
Meanwhile Al Ahly head coach Pitso Mosimane has played down the importance of keeping a clean sheet against Esperance, while assuring qualification for the final is their only goal.
The Red Devils clinched a spot in the Champions League semi-finals, after knocking out Mamelodi Sundowns with a 3-1 victory on aggregate to mark their 17th semi-final appearance in the competition, the most for any team in Africa.
On the other hand, Esperance pulled a comeback against CR Belouizdad and winning the game on penalties after the tie ended with a 2-2 draw on aggregate.
Speaking of the clash, Pitso said: “I respect Esperance and their coach, but Al Ahly came to Tunisia in order to achieve a positive result, and to continue defending the CAF Champions League title.
We all know the importance of this match, and everyone knows the history of the Esperance and Al Ahly clashes.
“The match is technically difficult, and we have all respect for the Esperance team. We are aware of their experiences and popularity in Tunisia, and we respect all our competitors because humility is a very important thing, and this is what we always do.
Al Ahly have great experience in the CAF Champions League as well, and always strives to win titles, in order to delight their fans, who are not satisfied with anything else.”
I respect the coach of Esperance, but we are Al Ahly and we have obligations towards the fans and history in order to always compete for the title.
“We are like soldiers in front of our fans, always striving to make them happy with titles.”
Winning the semi-finals on aggregate is our goal, noting that the football game has several possibilities, the most important of which is not conceding goals and working on scoring, and this is what we are focusing on now.
We are good at dealing with all possibilities anyway, and the issue of conceding is not a criterion for qualification, and the most important thing in the matter is to achieve the goal we seek, with the whistle at the end of the return match in Cairo.
“Conceding goals does not mean the end of the world.”
Tunisia, which almost ran out of oxygen at the end of April, is once again seeing the health situation deteriorate, with several hundred new confirmed cases and dozens of deaths per day. The country of 11 million people has recorded up to 374,312 test-confirmed cases and 13,721 deaths.