Orlando Pirates reach CAF Cup final despite shock home defeat

World Soccer Talk

Johannesburg (AFP) – South African club Orlando Pirates reached the CAF Confederation Cup final on Sunday despite a shock 1-0 loss to Libyan visitors Al Ahly Tripoli in a semi-final second leg.

Pirates built a 2-0 first-leg lead in Benghazi last Sunday and qualified 2-1 on aggregate for a second final appearance in the second-tier African competition.

Seemingly in a hopeless position after the home defeat, Ahly were the better team in the return match, especially in the opening half on a cold, damp night in Soweto on the outskirts of Johannesburg.

But with the match heading for a goalless stalemate, Libyan substitute Ali Abu Arqoub scored on 89 minutes to set up a tense finish, which included four minutes of added time.

A second Ahly goal would have taken the semi-final to a penalty shootout, but the tired visitors never threatened to score a second time at Orlando Stadium.

Pirates face Renaissance Berkane of Morocco or Tout Puissant Mazembe of the Democratic Republic of Congo, who meet later on Sunday, in the final this Friday in the Nigerian city of Uyo.

Mazembe won the Confederation Cup in 2016 and 2017, Berkane triumphed in 2020 and Pirates were runners-up to Etoile Sahel of Tunisia in 2015.

Like Pirates, Mazembe and Berkane have experienced the disappointment of losing a Confederation Cup final, failing in 2013 and 2019 respectively.

– Penalty decision reversed –

Ahly dominated the early exchanges and were awarded a penalty midway through the half when Pirates’ gaffe-prone captain and centre-back Happy Jele handled.

The Gambian referee pointed to the spot, but later changed his mind after reviewing the incident on the touchline VAR monitor.

While replays confirmed the ball came off the boot of Jele and touched his right hand, the match official presumably considered it a ball-to-hand situation rather than vice versa.

Ghana-born Richard Ofori of Pirates was the much busier goalkeeper, repeatedly thwarting Tripoli with acrobatic saves and parries, while opposite number Muhammad Nashnoush was a virtual spectator.

The only time Pirates threatened to score in the opening 45 minutes was off a free-kick which eluded the Ahly defence, but unmarked Jele failed to connect with the ball.

Pirates improved in the second half, helped by a string of substitutions, while an Ahly side used to performing at sea level gradually faded as they battled the 1,632-metre (5,354 feet) altitude.

Arqoub had barely came off the bench when he scored, latching on to a loose ball outside the box and unleashing a shot that took a slight deflection off Goodman Mosele before landing in the net.

Hurt in an accident? Get the help you need instantly by calling 888-577-5988

The post Orlando Pirates reach CAF Cup final despite shock home defeat first appeared on Daily Florida Press.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Committee week in Florida’s Capitol: Welcome to the festival of ignorance

Image
Legislators came to town for the autumn ritual of political harlotry they call “committee week.” Tallahassee’s collective IQ dropped by a good 60 points. That’s bad, but what they propose doing to Florida is worse. Seems Sen. Joe Gruters, R-$ara$ota, who also is chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, was intimately involved with a plot to quash the Democratic vote. Remember that “ voting reform ” bill the governor signed on “Fox and Friends” last May? The one that restricts access to ballot drop-boxes, limits vote-by-mail applications, forbids giving people standing in long lines a bottle of water, and lets partisan poll watchers police canvassing boards? Even though Florida ran an immaculate election in 2020, Republicans goose-stepped in time with the Madman of Mar-a-Lago and claimed with straight faces they merely wanted to prevent election “fraud” — which is about as common as polar bears in Miami. (What fraud there was, was courtesy of the GOP .) Joe Gruters ...
Read more

U.S. House GOP would make it easier for feds to give public lands away to states

Image
U.S. House Republicans included in the new rules for the chamber they passed this month a provision meant to make it easier for Congress to give away public lands. The provision is a fairly technical piece of the 55-page  rules package . It affects internal House accounting and requires that anytime Congress were to give any federal lands to a state, municipality or tribe, it would not be counted as a loss to the federal budget. House Republicans had an identical rule when they controlled the chamber from 2017 to 2019. Advocates and critics agree the measure would be helpful to any effort by the House to transfer federal lands to states. But they disagree about the wisdom of such giveaways. Republicans and conservative groups see states as preferable stewards of most public lands. Those closest to the land are in a better position to make decisions on how to manage them than those in Washington bureaucracies, they say. Environmental groups and Democrats see federal divest...
Read more

Democratic governors press U.S. Senate to act on voting rights legislation

Image
WASHINGTON — Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and 16 other Democratic governors are urging the U.S. Senate to pass two bills that aim to protect voting rights. Both measures need 60 votes to advance under Senate rules but have been stalled by Republican opposition in the evenly divided Senate. “Without decisive action by the federal government this year to protect voters’ access to the ballot and ensure the integrity and transparency of our elections, the voices of Americans across the country, especially Americans of color, will be suppressed,” the governors wrote in a Monday  letter  to U.S. Senate leadership. Governors who signed the letter include Jared Polis of Colorado, Tim Walz of Minnesota, Steve Sisolak of Nevada, Phil Murphy of New Jersey, Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico, Roy Cooper of North Carolina, Kate Brown of Oregon, Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania and Tony Evers of Wisconsin, among others. One bill, known as the  John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2...
Read more