Al Ahly head coach Pitso Mosimane admits they are relieved to have beaten Al Hilal as they qualified as runners-up from Group A to keep their dream of winning three CAF Champions League titles in a row alive.
The reigning African champions needed one point from their final game to advance behind Mamelodi Sundowns towards the quarter-final and secured three points through Hussein El-Shahat 74th minute strike.
It proved a relief after their back-to-back defeats against Sundowns last month and Mosimane jokingly suggested that the Hilal team that lost to Sundowns in Sudan weren’t the same team that fought valiantly in Cairo on Sunday evening.
Final 𝗚𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗽 𝗔 standings:
🇿🇦 Sundowns 16pts (Q)
🇪🇬 Al Ahly 10pts (Q)
🇸🇩 Al Hilal 4 pts
🇸🇩 Al-Merrikh 4ptsMamelodi Sundowns & Al Ahly qualify for the #CAFCL knockout stages. pic.twitter.com/sne39aiAoH
— iDiski Times (@iDiskiTimes) April 3, 2022
“A very difficult game as we were speaking the day before that it’s going to be difficult because we have to pay respect to Hilal, they gave us a very big fight,” he said in the post-match press conference.
“They never stopped, I don’t think this was the same Hilal who played last week in Sudan but we were a little bit cautious and the disciplined was very good between Yasser [Ibrahim] and Ayman [Ashraf] and Karim [Fouad], they played very well.
“This is why El-Shenaway was not very busy, to be honest. They kept the defence which is important for a big game like this, you need to understand that if you slip once they will catch you on the counter-attack.
“But you could see that we were all a little bit nervous in the first 15 to 20 minutes because it’s a big game, we know it’s a win at all costs, we were not ourselves in the first half.
“But it’s okay, it’s part of the game, once we scored the goal – I think we could have scored two or three more but the passing was not very good at the end but Alhamdulillah we are through.”
