African champions Al Ahly progress to FIFA Club World Cup semifinals with Bayern Munich after thrashing Al Duhail
African champions Al Ahly dent hosts’ hopes of making FIFA Club World Cup semifinals appearance. Al Duhail’s debut in the Club World Cup came with some sort of expectations in the host land where it would have been a milestone achievement in the history of the competition as Qatari side taste semifinals for first time as debutantes.
However, dominant Al Ahly ends all possible headlines in Qatar after emerging 1-0 victors to book a place in last four of the 2020 FIFA Club World Cup.
The host side knew the threat Al Ahly would pose and with Pitso Mosimane bringing to Al Ahly a new possessive style of play, Sabri Lamouchi was smart enough to start the game with a defensive approach, introducing the 4-1-4-1 formation against Ahly’s 4-2-3-1 as Congolese forward Walter Bwalya lead the frontline.
With that said, the tonation and direction of flow of the clash had already been determined before the two sides even took to the pitch at Education City Stadium in Al Rayyan.
It isn’t said that Al Duhail feared the African giants but the was evidence of something like that as the Qatar champions started the game with a marquee defending style though they started the brighter side in first 10 minutes.
And that approach gave Al Ahly chance to start the game without pressure on them and meanwhile pushed Al Duhail to their own half from the 11′ minute to end of first half.
In fact, despite Al Ahly dominating proceedings, Lamouchi’s system was primarily at work limiting the Egyptian side to creating fewer clear cut chances and at some instances Mosimane’s side were trapped within their own system.
That’s not to say that Al Ahly lacked the idea of what they were doing and despite knowing what they wanted to do it seems Lamouchi’s systems was an huge uphill for the African side.
With that standing, it was a blunder in the final third that changed the game for Al Ahly when Bwalya intercepted Al Duhail’s build-up behind the box and much credit must go to Hussein Ali El Shahat who sent a beautiful one to the bottom right corner of Salah Zakaria as Ahly led by the 30′ minute mark.
Al Duhail could have leveled in the second half after holding Ahly for not scoring the second goal of the match. However, the Caf Champions League winners held on to their lead as they face Bayern Munich in the semifinals at Ahmed Bin Ali Stadium on Monday.
For the fifth place clash, Al Duhail will also face another Asian side Ulsan who earlier suffered 2-1 defeat in hands of Mexican side Tigres UANL.
Tigres UANL will play South American champions Palmeiras in the other semifinals on Sunday evening.
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