Preview: Zamalek SC v Esperance of Tunisia | CAF Super Cup
Egypt’s Zamalek, who won the Confederation Cup last season, are set to face CAF Champions League winners Esperance of Tunisia in the Qatari capital Doha on Friday.
The Cairo giants are bidding to claim their fourth African Super Cup title, the last of which came at the expense of Morocco’s Wydad Casablanca in 2003, while Esperance are searching for their second title since they last snatched it in 1995.
Zamalek and Esperance met in six games in the African Champions League in which the former won twice, lost once, and drew three times.
FULL HOUSE!
The Qatar Football Association (QFA) announced Monday that tickets for the CAF Super Cup encounter between Zamalek and ES Tunis have been sold out.
“Tickets for the CAF Super Cup are sold out. We hope that all people would enjoy watching the game, which will be held at Thani bin Jassim Stadium,” QFA said on its official Twitter account.
Thani bin Jassim Stadium, with its official capacity of 25K, will host the encounter on Friday, February 14 at 18:0 CLT.
Zamalek is ready
Zamalek will start the game with a full squad after the return of the team’s first-choice goalkeeper Mahmoud “Gennesh” Abdel-Rehim, who recently recovered from a lengthy injury lay-off.
Gennesh, who played an instrumental role in helping Zamalek win the African Confederation Cup and Egypt Cup last season, has been out of action since rupturing an Achilles tendon in June last year while on international duty.
However, captain Mahmoud “Shikabala” Abdel-Razek is doubtful for the game as he hasn’t been able to fully train over the past few days.
Zamalek have recently returned to winning ways as they defeated Haras El-Hodoud in the Egyptian Premier League 2-0 before beating outfit Ismaily 2-1 in the league last week.
Esperance eyes on the Super Cup First!
Esperance manager, Moine Chaabani, revealed on Wednesday that his team is focusing on the CAF Super Cup Final and they are not thinking of their clash against Zamalek at the quarter-finals of CAF Champions League.
“We are not thinking of our CAF Champions League encounter now, all what’s in our minds is the Super Cup game. Zamalek is a great team; they are five times African champions. But we are the last two seasons’ champions and a great team as well. It’s going to be an interesting duel.” Chaabani told CAF official website.
The two teams will face each other again two weeks later in Cairo at the CAF Champions League quarter-finals first leg before playing the second leg in Tunisia a week later.
Chaabani added “I warned my players that this is not going to be an easy game. We have to take the lessons from what happened last year when we lost to Raja.”
Esperance’s last CAF Super Cup title was in 1995 during their first participation at the competition but they lost the final on three occasions in 1999, 2012 and 2018.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-wYL24yl1k&list=WL&index=19&t=0s
