Reds are no longer blue
Ahli salvaged their reputation by capturing the football cup in a season-ending triumph.Nashwa Abdel-Tawab reviews the dramatic finale.
Ahli won the FA Cup after a penalty shoot-out with Ismaili in a marathon final that began to get interesting only in its dying minutes.
Substitute Khalid Bibo scored for Ahli after 111 minutes of scoreless football but Ismaili replied almost immediately through Mohamed Mohsen Abu Greisha to knot the score at 1-1 and send the game into mandatory penalties. In the box, Ahli's goalkeeper Essam El-Hadari stopped two shots and his club proved more effective on goal, scoring four times.
The win gave the red-shirted Ahli squad their first local trophy in three years and helped atone for their failure to win the league title in May after losing it in spectacular fashion -- on the final day of the season -- to Zamalek.
Ismaili, who last won the cup in 1992 after beating Ahli, could not repeat the accomplishment and ended the year empty-handed after failing to emulate their fairy tale run of last year which netted them the league title.
The match also pitted two Egyptian coaches, Ismaili's Ali Abu Greisha and Fathi Mabrouk of Ahli, star players in the 1970s. The two replaced foreign managers, a Yugoslav and a Dutchman respectively, who were axed during the season.
The first half of Monday night's match, witnessed by a largely partisan Ahli crowd in Cairo stadium, was empty of enthusiasm as both teams played tedious and careful soccer.
The second half picked up slightly but the pressure on both squads to win constantly kept the players in a defensive shell.
By the end of regulation time the sides were spent after having played in a long drawn-out season. But a winner had to be decided, forcing 30 minutes of extra time.
The first 15 minutes went the way of the previous 90 minutes but in the second half Ahli finally broke the deadlock with the help of their reserves. Mohamed Fadl managed to make his way close to the right post, then passed to Bibo who threaded the ball past Mohamed Sobhi.
With only nine minutes left the goal looked like the winner but Ismaili came right back. A cross was mishandled by El- Hadari, allowing Abu Greisha to latch on to the loose ball and calmly stroke it in goal.
In the spot kicks, El-Hadari made up for his earlier mishap by stopping Emad El-Nahas and Amr Faheem while Ahli missed just once, Angolan Gilberto shooting wildly over the crossbar.
Ahmed Bilal, the league's top goal getter, calmly slotted the ball to Sobhi's right for the penalty winner to send home ecstatic Ahli supporters and despondent followers of Ismaili.
