The Other Champions League (Highlights Included)

You know, the one going on in Africa right now? Oh, you had no clue? Well thats about to change right about… NOW! I am happy to report that the 2007 edition of the African Champions League is alive and well. If you aren’t familiar with this competition here’s a few things you should know:

The Egyptian club side Al Ahly are the current holders. They are essentially the most successful African Club and they continue to dominate most continental competitions. They just celebrated their centennial by inviting Barcelona and its plethora of stars to Cairo and recently beat Benfica in a friendly. The team is composed mostly of Egyptian players (most notably their Captain and inspirational leader Aboutrika). Unfortunately for us they have a long history of tormenting Tunisian Club sides in this competition. Seriously, if there was such a thing as a boogy man, they are it. The worst thing about this is that our clubs have made it to the final so many times and we’ve only won the thing twice (compared to Al Ahly which has managed to lift it five times). We have been runners up 5 out of the last 8 editions of this tournament. Perhaps the worst defeat in the final yet was last years debacle in which the Tunisian Club Sportif Sfaxien came away with a 1-1 draw in the first leg (the final is played over two legs unlike the European version) against Al Ahly only to lose 1-0 in the return leg to the eventual champions. The game was not without controversy as CSS was disallowed a perfectly legal goal for offside. Aboutrika sealed the win in typical dramatic fashion right at the death and thousands of Tunisian fans went home to mope around for a long time (can’t believe I’m linking it. Merely thinking about the goal still lowers my morale considerably, and I’m not even a CSS fan).

Anyways enough with the history. At this point in the competition there are two groups of four teams and and the top two teams in each group will progress to the Semi Finals. You should be pleased to know that Tunisia is the only country with two club teams left in the competition with the Esperance Sportive de Tunis (Tunisian equivalent of modern Chelsea) in one group and Etoile du Sahel (Tunisian equivalent of Arsenal) in the other. Both teams are on opposite sides of the spectrum in terms of form right now. L’Etoile just guaranteed their place in the Semi’s by beating the Jeunesse Sportive de Kabylie while L’Esperance managed to keep their rather slim hopes of advancing alive by beating old foes Al Ahly at home (pretty outstanding for a Club that had its newly unveiled manager leave after only one game in charge a couple weeks ago.) Highlights below…

Esperance Goal Versus Al Ahly:

Esperance celebrations during and after the match (you can see how much it means to them). I was at their game against the ASEC Mimosas of Abidjan in Tunis earlier this summer and though the game ended goal-less the Esperance fans supported their team almost as vigorously as can be seen below. If any of you spoke Tunisian slang this video would be R rated for obscene language but since most of you don’t know the difference enjoy the expletive laden chants:

Etoile Goals Vs. JSK