African Champions League
Final proves to be a step too far for South African underdogs Kaizer Chiefs
In the end the fairy tale had a horror ending, but Kaizer Chiefs’ ride to the African Champions League final was among the most remarkable stories in the continental club competition for years. They eventually lost to a polished Al Ahly, who continued to break new ground as they completed “Al Ashra” – their tenth success in the competition, in the Arabic equivalent of Real Madrid’s “Decima”.
The final proved a one-sided affair, with the Egyptians beating Chiefs 3-0 in Casablanca to enforce their superiority in the African game and add another chapter to an already illustrious history.
It was always going to be a tough assignment for the Soweto club, and their slim chances were reduced to virtually nothing when they had Happy Mashiane sent off just before half-time.
He made a ridiculous challenge inside Al Ahly’s half on an opponent’s ankle that the referee first cautioned him for, but then after being encouraged to review it, changed the colour from yellow to red.
It saw Chiefs overwhelmed in the second half as Mohamed Sherif, Magdi Afsha and Amr El-Sulaya scored for the Cairo club to ensure an emphatic win that might have been even more one-sided had Al Ahly not taken their foot off the gas in the closing stages.
But despite the calamity of the final, Chiefs made a real success story of the 2020-21 competition. The Soweto club have been the best-supported team in South Africa over the last half-century and are a lucrative domestic brand, but their reach had never extended further than the southern African region.
This was the first time they had even got into the group phase of the Champions League, never mind all the way to the final, and came on the back of a calamitous domestic season.
It all started last campaign. Chiefs entered the belated final stages, played out in a bio-bubble in Johannesburg, with a significant lead over their rivals, but departed some four weeks later having blown their title chances on the last day. The disappointment extended their trophyless run to five seasons after decades of dominance.
Then came a one-year transfer ban for a botched deal involving Madagascar midfielder Arohasina Andrianarimanana, who in the end could hardly crack the first team, and a change of coach. But Gavin Hunt, who’d previously won four South Africa championships with two different clubs, proved ill-fitted and the club limped along in the nether regions of the league. Yet at the same time, they continued to make surprise progress through the Champions League, albeit with several fortunate twists and turns.
Hunt was eventually fired two games from the end of the league season (as
Chiefs looked set to finish lower than they had ever before) and on the eve of the Champions League semi-final against Wydad Casablanca of Morocco. They parachuted in former coach Stuart Baxter and he was able to affect an eighth-place finish in the league and see the club through a dramatic “smash-and-grab” semi-final win over the much more fancied Wydad.
It really was thief in the night stuff as Chiefs caught Wydad with a counter punch away in the first leg in Casablanca through Serbian striker Sami Nurkovic, then defended as if their lives depended on it to take a 1-0 lead into the second leg a week later. In Johannesburg, they were even more on the back foot but somehow survived a goalless draw, reaching the final against all odds.
At the same time, Al Ahly were winning both home and away against Esperance of Tunisia for a comprehensive 4-0 aggregate success that underlined their prowess and the massive task that Chiefs would face in the final.
Baxter, seeking to become only the second Briton after Richie Barker (Zamalek 1986) to take a club to African Champions League success, had warned that Al Ahly’s winning mentality and direct approach would be hard to counter but that any team who had made it to a final had to believe they had a chance.
But Chiefs showed few signs of selfbelief and once the initially cautions
Egyptians started upping the tempo, the gulf in class quickly became evident. Al Ahly were patient once they had the one-man advantage but then came a trio of well taken goals to bring home yet another continental title. They are in line to chase another milestone in the African game: no club has ever won the Champions League three times in a row, but next May the Egyptians might change that too.
Despite the calamity of the final, Chiefs made a real success story of the 2020-21 competition