Success in football, as in all sports, is a function of skill, application, self-belief and providence. For Friday’s third-round CAF Africa Champions Cup between South African champions Mamelodi Sundowns and Egypt’s Al-Ahly, no amount of divine intervention could be too great.
The match is a culmination of a journey that started in what at least two of the world’s dominant monotheistic religions regard as holy week. It is, therefore, appropriate that faith and hope for a miracle were dominant themes at the Mamelodi Sundowns’ training ground as they prepared for the second round against Al-Ahly, with whom they had previously tied.
And why wouldn’t Sundowns fancy that their deity would smile favourably on them? The match takes place in the country that saw the greatest maritime miracle ever — the parting of the Red Sea.
And the holy week is also the commemoration of the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Sundowns had themselves died and risen in that first-leg encounter.
After going two goals down at home, only the most faithful would have expected that Gordon Igesund’s side would come back. But in the spirit of the week, Sundowns did — scoring the second and equalising goal, at, shall we say as they do in this game, the death.
Similarly Sundowns were within their rights to invoke another miracle — in the form of Jerry Sikhosana’s lone strike against Asec Mimosa in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, in 1995, which gave Orlando Pirates an unlikely 3-2 away win to clinch Southern Africa’s only continental club competition triumph.
As if all these signs were not enough, last week Italian side AC Milan scored a shock 2-0 win away to Bayern Munich after they had been held two-all at home and were considered dead and buried.
So, if your partiality lies with Sundowns, you would be within reason to become a believer.
Although, whose bench Jesus sits on is another matter.
Al-Ahly are coached by Manuel José de Jesus — a man who does not seem like one to attribute human frailties to the gods. He has blamed an indifferent performance by defensive-midfield star Hossam Ashour on a lapse of concentration.
Ashour came in as a substitute with the mandate of shoring up the defending champions’ defence and preventing Al-Ahly relinquishing the lead that could have turned the second leg into an academic exercise.
”My players weren’t at their best and they lost their concentration during the last 20 minutes, which cost us a lot,” he told the MTN Champions League website.
”I don’t know what happened, but since Ashour came in it seemed we were playing with only 10 men on the field.”
The piece went on to say that a fuming De Jesus confirmed that there would be sanctions against certain players who were deemed culpable.
Al-Ahly, or to call them by their full name, Al-nady Al-Ahly Lel-ryada Albadaneya, are the embodiment of Egyptian football. The name, which means ”national” in Arabic, is wholly appropriate. They are the most successful club in Egypt, having won the Egyptian League 31 times and the Egyptian Cup on 34 occasions in its 100-year history.
They have won the CAF Championship five times, including the last two editions, and they have won the Cup Winners Cup four times and the Super Cup on three occasions.
This pedigree should place Sundowns in an unfamiliar position — that of the underdog. For a side that has just clinched its second national title in two years, the idea is insulting.
Furthermore, the Pretoria side and its fans have long forgotten the taste of defeat. Cape Town’s Ajax was the last to inflict defeat — twice in seven days last year — when the teams met in the league on December 3 and in the Telkom Cup six days later.
Sundowns can, therefore, expect an unfriendly reception when they trot into the 74 000-seater Cairo International Stadium, a venue that will leave many of its between 40- and 50-million worshippers regretting having to settle for watching the match on television.
Truth is, Patrice Motsepe’s side can take its billing any way it wants to. Until it wins against continental sides that matter, it will be nothing more than a schoolyard bully who disintegrates before his equals.
Continental greatness cannot be gained as easily as one gains local supremacy. As the South African cricket team has shown, it does not matter how great you are at home, you have to replicate that dominance outside of your borders.
Continental supremacy is achieved by defeating other champions in unfamiliar territories in front of hostile crowds. And it must happen consistently.
Sundowns, spoilt by a run against paperweight opposition at home, could not have asked for a better opportunity to emphasise Motsepe’s desire to be the continent’s greatest than by playing Al-Ahly at this stage of the tournament. The intensity and interest in the tie belies that at stake is the right to play in the league stages.
Not since Zola Mahobe transformed the club from relegation candidates to the aristocrats they are today, has a Sundowns effort been described as brave or plucky. Anything less than a victory will, therefore, be regarded as a failure.
But, like those that the Good Book tells us had to leave Egypt the hard way, many thousands of years ago, Sundowns will simply have to have some faith.