adminFrom Lovemore Moyo in JOHANNESBURG, South Africa
ORLANDO Pirates’ amazing run in the Caf Champions League this year has brought a smile the traditionally under-achieving Cosafa region.
It isliterally unheard of for rival fans to join hands but such is the colossal task ahead that all football supporters have joined forces to make sure that there is a full house at Orlando Stadium tonight for the first leg of the final of Africa’s premier club competition.
Egyptian powerhouse Al Ahly are the hurdle that Pirates, South Africa, the Cosafa region and even Sub-Saharan Africa want to clear to wrestle the crown of being champions from the Arabic part of Africa.
A rare sound of unity has been heard throughout the week with the chorus pushing for Pirates to finish off a wonderful campaign in which anyone who gave them a chance of reaching this final back in February would have been considered insane.
But having now moved mountains along the way The Bucs will play a Champions League match at their 40 000-seater stadium in Soweto before a capacity crowd for the first time this year.
The hopes are high for Pirates because they are the only club from the region to have won this trophy when they found enough courage and tenacity to fell ASEC Mimosas 18 years ago, soldiering to a 1-0 victory away in Abdijan after a 2-2 draw at home in the first leg.
South Africa President Jacob Zuma has led from the forefront this week in leading the war cry in the battle to bring back that Champions League trophy to South Africa.
Al Ahly are up against a Pirates team that has been increasingly growing in confidence in this tournament since enduring that ‘hell spell’ in Lubumbashi as they battled their way past a TP Mazembe that employed all sorts of dirty tactics.
Once you come out alive in an away game where the officiating is so biased that your captain is red carded within the opening half hour for not even touching the opponent and the hosts are handed two dubious penalties, which they both miss, then it cannot get any worse.
Senzo Meyiwa, the Pirates keeper who has been a pillar of inspiration, this week spoke of that failure to win would be unbearable for his men.
“We have done so much to reach the final that I feel all that is left for us is to give it that one big last push over the two legs.
“It will really hurt for us to finish off as second best in a competition where we have given everything we have,” Meyiwa said.
Pirates were the first to team from this region to reach the Champions League final back in ’95 before Dynamos showed a lot of bravery three years later against ASEC Mimosas only to be suffocated by the harsh reality of what African is about when playing away when underhand tactics were used by the Ivorians on their way to emerging victorious.
Al Ahly have been in Johannesburg since Tuesday morning and their coach Mohammed Youssef last night said they were ready for a fight.
“We are looking for an away goal here and once we get that away goal then half the job will have been done,” Youssef said.
Online Reporter