(Zamalek-Inter club) preview: restoring old pride

By: Tamim | April 25th, 2008

Tomorrow zamalek will be playing the first leg of the caf champions league in Cairo against inter club from Angola. the match is important for several reasons, some players will be missing and others will return from injury. away from the match, i would like to say congratulations to amr zaki for his new baby “mazen”

let’s start with the opponent, all i know about inter club is that they won the league last year, they are number 1 in the table this year and they are playing in the champions league for the first time. today they were interviewing one of the board members of inter club on Egyptian tv and he said that the club is the police team. they say that it is a a good team which plays fast football but i don’t believe this (hopefully)!!

now onto the white team of Cairo, zamalek has been enjoying a great form lately with 3 consecutive wins in the league with high performance. however, a problem we were suffering from is that the players lose concentration at the second half and the performance curve goes down. so we must end it fast with 2 goals at least at the first half and maybe control the game at the second half without tension.

the game is important both for the team and the club. for the team, they must win to proceed forward in the championship and reach the quarter final for the first time since 2005 and from there things will be greatly changed (new coach maybe!!). for the club, if we go to the quarter finals we would earn 2 million Egyptian pounds we desperately need them.

zamalek enjoys a great history in this championship being the first team to win it under both names 5 times (recently, ahly equalized this number). last final zamalek played was against raja from morocco and won on aggregate 1-0 scored by tamer abd el hamid. so zamalek is considered number 1 team in Africa and we really need to prove it this year as our reputation has been hardly damaged and we need a win to restore or pride and prestige around the continent.

the team enters the game missing some players like defender amr el safti and mohamed abdallah because of an intense flu while shikabala maybe absent. on the other hand, Tunisian defender wessam el abdy will be ready for the game after a long injury, as well as beshir el tabbei, tarek el sayed and striker amr zaki. for the goal keeper, ruud croll is very keen on choosing abd el monsef instead of abd el wahed el sayed who is back from injury, he thinks that abdel wahed should play easy games until he gradually retrains his form. the team seems to be in full power before the game, all we need is luck and concentration.

we need to score at least one goal in the first 20 minutes and finish the first half with a 2-0 lead in order to play calmly in the second half. either than that, we will be having some hard times.

match card

what: caf champions league round of 16
who: zamalek-inter club
when: 26/5/2008 8:00 pm
where: cairo military stadium

FORZA ZAMALEK