Ahly eased pressure on under-fire coach Juan Carlos Garrido after a Moemen Zakareya doubled helped them to a 5-0 win over lowly Assiouty Sport in the Egyptian Premier League on Tuesday.
Ahly’s seven league draws so far this season included a surprising 0-0 stalemate away to Assiouty in October last year but there was no repeat in a one-sided affair on Tuesday.
The match was not broadcast live after Ahly fell out with the Egyptian Radio and Television Union (ERTU) over unpaid dues.
As soon as winger Walid Soliman gave Ahly the lead after 14 minutes, the floodgates were opened.
Winger Zakareya, who joined Ahly in January after leaving arch-rivals Zamalek and scored his first league goal for the Red Devils in their 1-1 draw with Ismaily last week, doubled their advantage on the half-hour mark with a powerful shot.
He scored his second of the night six minutes later with a close-range header before Ethiopia’s Saladin Said, who played as a lone striker because of Emad Meteb’s injury, put the result beyond doubt with a 41st-minute goal.
Playmaker Abdallah El-Saied put the icing on the cake on 70 minutes with a long-range shot as Ahly kept alive their hopes of equalling their own record of winning the league titles nine times in a row.
Garrido has come under fierce criticism recently following some disappointing results by the standards of Ahly, Egypt and Africa’s most successful club.
Ahly chairman Mahmoud Taher made an implicit warning earlier this week when he sat down with Garrido, telling him that the club would never accept anything less than being crowned champions come the end of the season.
The Cairo giants are third in the table with 43 points, one behind second-placed ENPPI and eight adrift of leaders and arch-rivals Zamalek, who are seeking to win their first league title since 2004.
