This weekend, Zim’s 4 reps in continental football, Gunner, Dynamos, Caps Utd and Lengethens return to the African Safari with very mixed chances of going thru.
It is expected to be done and dusted for traditional giants, De-Mbare, given their crucial win in the DRC against FC Lupopo. It will be a real shocker if De-Mbare were to fail to sail thru.
Kepekepe made life difficult for themselves for failing to come to the party against neighbouring Moroka Swallows. However, matches between Zimbabwean and SA teams are always difficult to predict, and they may be able to salvage something across the Limpopo. Remember Ajax and Monos last year?
I find it difficult to even start talking about the not so Happy People of Lengthens. It will be one of the greatest comebacks of my football supporting life is by some unimaginable chance, we will still talking about them in the next round of the Confed Cup. They trail 3 – 0 going into an away leg to Simba SC of Tanzania. Well, their game was over by half time in the first leg.
The most poised match for me is the Gunners – Alhy match at the Cairo International Stadium in Egypt on Friday night. I know not many are very keen on Gunners chances going into this game, which is understandable given Alhy’s pedigree on the continent. In fact, I was taken aback by the seeming silence by the mainstream continental football media on Alhy’s loss at Rufaro. It seems they were all saying, “Well, it’s just a slip up away from home, they will recover back in Cairo”. And they (Alhy) indeed are expecting it to be an easy overturn.
Even after putting patriotism aside, I have this hunch about Gunners actually dumping Alhy out of this one, to make the importance of Maroto’s goal at Rufaro finally dawn on everyone. After watching them at Rufaro, not that they played anything out of the ordinary Gunners game, I just felt that Gunners have what it takes to dump Alhy out of this year’s competition, and shock the footballing continet.
This match kind of reminds me of the Dynamos – Etoille du Sportive Sahel match of March 2008. Etoille, were the defending Champions when they came to face De Mbare at Gwanzura. De Mbare played a very ordinary game, and some might even say they survived as the then dangerous teen Charmiti missed a number of seaters in the Etoille front line. Just like Gunners, De Mbare ground out a 1 – 0 win, courtesy of a Desmond Maringwa header.
Going to Tunis, many thought 1 – 0 was no toll order for Etoille to overhaul. Guess what the final scoreline was, 0-1 in favour of De Mbare, Maringwa again. Goalkeeper Willard Manyatera played arguably the best game of his entire career to date. This was most unexpected and made headlines. Only the Die hard De Mbare fans expected a win out of Tunis, a draw would have been good enough. Just to put the feat into perspective, Etoille had won the Cup in 2007 by overhauling Alhy 3 -1 in Cairo, with Charmiti starring.
Can Gunners re-write the De Mbare script? Maybe in exact words, but a favourable result is in sight. There is no doubting that Maroto might strike again in Cairo, and that is going to make life tuff for Alhy. They will get into this game expecting Gunners to park the pass and absorb the pressure, but I am sure Darlington Dodo will know better than that. In Tafadzwa Dube, they also have a potent match winner between the posts. By their body language at Rufaro, Alhy don’t expect a tuff time in Cairo, but Gunners are capable of frustrating them, and frustrated they can be. This will be the chance for the unheralded Gunners players to rise to be counted in African football, and just like the De Mbare fairy run to the semis in 2008, this may just be the result Gunners need to perform an unprecedented act in their debut season in African football. Most importantly for Zhuwawo and co, if they loose, its no big deal, but if they win...? So why not?
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