Al-Ahram Weekly | Sports | As close as they get

		Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 7 -13 December 2000 Issue No.511
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875		Current issue \| Previous issue \| Site map

As close as they get
By Alaa Shahine
An injury-time goal by Yasser Ryan helped defending champions Ahli edge Mansoura 2-1 and propel it to the top of the football league table for the first time this season, writes Alaa Shahine.
The victory gave Ahli 24 points, one more than Zamalek, plus a view from atop the table in this hotly-contested Click-GSM-sponsored season. Mansoura remained in mid-table with 10 points.
Junior Ahli sensation Ahmed El-Said opened the scoring, rising to meet a pinpoint cross before firing a header in the 20th minute. In the 55th minute Mansoura equalised when Ahmed Farghali took advantage of a magnanimous gesture by Ahli's keeper Essam El-Hadari. The goalkeeper's clearance went straight to Farghali who found nothing but net to shoot at.
In the 93rd minute, when spectators are already halfway home, Ryan, at 30 one of the club's old guards, made the most of a shot that keeper Mohamed El-Khawwas initially blocked, pouncing on the rebound for the last-gasp winning goal.
Ahli's German coach Hans Jurgen Dourner was thankful for the three points but not thrilled by the performance. "I cannot find any justification for this. I will try to work out the problems in the next few days." Said Mansoura's coach Hassan Megahid: "We should have won but that's football."
Zamalek conceded first place for the first time this season, dropping to second after a scoreless draw with Mehalla away from home. But it has one extra match waiting in the wings, postponed because of African championship commitments. The game with Mehalla was played shortly after Zamalek's crushing 4-1 defeat of Cameroon's Canon Yaounde in the first leg of the African Cup Winners Cup final. The team faces Canon on Sunday in the second-leg.
"We were close to winning," said Helmi Toulan, Zamalek's assistant coach of the Mehalla match. "Our strikers should have taken advantage of the scoring opportunities they had."
It was a week of many ties. Arab Contractors and Sohag played to a scoreless draw against both Misri and Maadin respectively. Tersana drew 1-1 with Dina while Canal broke the routine, barely, with a scrappy 1-0 win against Kouroum.
Meanwhile, the football association has ordered a rematch between Zamalek and Arab Contractors -- but with no spectators -- after the referee was hit in the head by a stone. The association also decided to fine each team LE25,000. Zamalek was fined because of its fans' unruly behaviour towards the referee while the home side was punished for not separating the supporters of the two teams and failing to guarantee the safety of the match.
Rida El-Beltagi was forced to stop the 21 November match with Contractors ahead 1-0. He stopped the game at half-time after a stone thrown by an unidentified fan hit him near the eye as he was returning to the changing rooms.

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