Rulani Mokwena stopped short of calling Al Ahly ‘cry babies’ as he anticipated Mamelodi Sundowns’ African Football League (AFL) semi-final second leg clash with the Egyptian giants at the Cairo Stadium tonight (kick-off 8pm).
He probably should have given the African Club of the Century’s history of succeeding courtesy of their propensity to intimidate and dupe match officials.
Mokwena’s South African champions have a precarious 1-0 lead and at a pre-match media briefing in the Egyptian capital on Tuesday, the Sundowns coach sounded irritated by a question about the officiating from the first leg at Loftus Versfeld.
The Al Ahly coach had claimed that his team should have had a penalty in the first leg that they lost to a Thapelo Maseko goal and an Egyptian journalist questioned Mokwena about it.
‘Very surprised’
“I am very surprised that Al Ahly complained about the penalty. Before the first leg, Al Ahly complained that they can’t play at three o’clock,” the Sundowns mentor said.
“Yet they are allowed to put the second leg at a time that suits them and you hear no complaints from Mamelodi Sundowns.
“I am surprised that Al Ahly are always complaining about the referee only when they lose.”
He quoted a favourite European coach of his to make the Red Devils aware that always crying foul does their reputation no good.
“Jose Mourinho said that once a big club starts to look for other factors apart from football when they lose, they start losing their status as a big club.
“And I hope that is not the case with Al Ahly, because they are the flagship of African football.
“The rest of the world and Europe look to Al Ahly as the flagship of what African football represents.
“So, my question after their complaints is, ‘What is really the intention?’, because I can go through a list of incidents when the referees did not act in what I thought would be the just way.”
‘If one team should complain, it should be Sundowns’
Mokwena rattled off numerous incidents from the first leg and the exact moments they occurred that should have been judged in Sundowns’ favour and seen Al Ahly players being booked to prove his point.
“We had seven fouls and two yellow cards. Al Ahly – 13 fouls, one yellow card. If there’s a team that needs to complain, it should be Mamelodi Sundowns. But we don’t complain.”
And they will not be complaining tonight as they seek to yet again get the better of Al Ahly in their own backyard, as they did back in February in the CAF Champions League, when they beat the Red Devils 5-2.
That humiliation still rankles among Ahly and their supporters, who see tonight as an opportunity to get even.
And you can bet they will employ every trick in the book – especially to dupe officials into seeing things their way – in their quest for revenge.
Fortunately for Sundowns, Mokwena has got Al Ahly figured out and his calling them out before the match will no doubt go some way to the match officials having some conscience and doing their best to not be seen to be pro-Al Ahly.
In any case, if the African Football League (AFL) is to be taken seriously as the continent’s ultimate knockout competition, the officiating has to be top-notch, with no hint of bias – the fact that there are some cry babies on the pitch notwithstanding.