Anything official? Anything on other leagues beside South African? I'd say they are rushing into this decision. 16 should be fine for few years. I assume they would go with many direct berths if they move to 32-team format.
Hello everybody, this may not be the right place to post this message, but I need some help; I'll be in Casablanca on Aug 18-19, the Moroccan league schedule came out (Botola Pro) and it's showing the first games on Aug 22, which is a tuesday (which is a little weird) but I was wondering if anybody who is familiar with this league knows whether they'll play some games a few days before for TV reasons, or perhaps the Cup du Trone (I saw they have pairing already but I couldn't see any dates) - anyway, any help to understand would be greatly appreciated!
Wikipedia doesn't have a page for the 2017 Cup du Trone yet. Soccerway doesn't have a schedule for Botola Pro or Cup du Trone. You could try a Moroccan website if you can read the language or your browser can translate it well.
Some first leg quarter finals results from the Champions League : Ferroviaro 1-1 USM Alger Al Ahly Cairo 2-2 Esperance Mamelodi Sundowns 1-0 Wydad Casablanca Very competitive and nobody has a clear edge yet. One fixture left in the first round to be played.
Wydad Casablanca 1-0 Mamelodi Sundowns Wydad advance 3-2 on penalties. This match and everything leading up to it was a disgrace. It’s 2017 and teams are still employing tactics from the 1980s. Using pre-game tactics to make sure your opening is fatigued and unprepared before the game even kicks off. Wydad denying Sundowns hotels by telling all the hotels in the area to not accommodate them, a training pitch that is dig up and has trenches and telling all the teams in the areas to not make their facilities available, giving them an old bus that stank and which was definitely far from road worthy amongst other things. It’s pathetic.
Etoile du Sahel qualify for the semi finals making it an all North African affair The fixtures are : Etoile du Sahel vs Al Ahly USM Alger vs Wydad Casablanca
CCL : Al Ahly of Egypt prevail 7-4 over Etoile du Sahelof Tunisia after thumping them 6-2 in the second leg in Egypt Wydad Casablanca of Morocco won 3-1 on aggregate against USM Alger of Algeria and comfortably winning at home in Morocco 3-1 in the second leg So it’s Al Ahly vs Wydad with the second leg in Morocco
CCC: TP Mazembe of DRC prevail 1-0 on aggregate over FUS de Rabat from Morocco Supersport United from SA prevail 4-1 on Aggregate over Club Africain from Tunisia after thumping them in Tunisia 3-1! Setting up a final between Mazembe and Supersport with th second leg in South Africa. A repeat of their group stage tie
So both finals are repeats of group stage matchups. LOL. I expect Al Ahly to take the CL while I'd love to see Supersport taking it in the CC.
Al Ahly open the scoring with a screamer in the first five minutes! Brilliant start to the first leg of the final!!!
How long until Al Ahly returns to Cairo? Great result for Wydad, didn't expect this after early lead by hosts.
Today is the second leg of the Final. Al Ahly with the experience of handling CAF finals and Wydad with home advantage and the glory of obtaining a second champions league crown in their history. The Al Ahly communications officer was on Soccer Africa (South African football show) and was boisterous about Al Ahly’s chances of winning. He claimed that Espernace were a more difficult opponent than Wydad and that how they dealt with espernace is a warning to Wydad. One of Al Ahly’s midweek training sessions was disrupted when thousands of Al Ahly fans came to support them and flooded the field in order to show their support. It was amazing scenes there at the training ground and should really encourage Al Ahly. Wydad seems to know the task ahead of them but know that they have home ground advantage. The Wydad coach, in an interview, said it would be suicidal to sit back and defend their away goal advantage so this promises to be a good and open game. My pick to win is Wydad 1-0 and 2-1 on aggregate.
I agree. If you're up 3-0 after the first leg, maybe you should only defend, but I think you should attack if you would be eliminated with a 1-0 loss (which could come from a mistake by one player or an undeserved penalty kick).
Few teams can defend. It is wrong to defend at your own stadium, especially if you are not used to defend. You are one of giants, you are expected to attack. I expect good game and few goals. 2-2, Al Ahly wins on away goals. And I hope next season CL won't have crazy schedule like this season, there should have been some rest between SF and F.
There are new African champions! Wydad win 1-0 and 2-1 on aggregate. It’s only right that the team that knocked out the reigning African champions (Sundowns) goes on to win the title. A well managed game by Wydad and although Al Ahly has a strong start, Wydad started to control the game. Great game of football and looking forward to the next edition of the CAF champions league. Now for the CAF confederation cup final between TP Mazembe vs Supersport
Congrats, Wydad! Dully delivered! Fifth different nation with a title in last five editions. And, fun fact, no other nation had team in the final beside those five - Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, Congo DR, South Africa. Best ranked African league, Tunisian, did not have team in final in that time. Funny. Pretty entertaining season, expansion was great move, we saw new teams representing new CL countries, no teams had easy game (unlike Europe), they always had to give maximum to win. I hope it will continue this way and that we will see more serious approach by clubs from the west coast. Looking forward to next edition as well, hope to see my broadcaster starts broadcast from group stage, not from semifinal.
That’s actually an interesting stat I never knew. Well after these last five seasons I think Tunisia will lose its number 1 ranking to Egypt and judging by the latest CAF Rankings for the 2018 edition, they did lose it as the top 5 in order are : 1) Egypt 85 points 2) Tunisia 76 points 3) DRC 70 points 4) Algeria 62 points 5) South Africa 45 points For interests sake, judging by performance in how many finals each reached in those last five years in both the Champions league and Confederations cup : 1)DRC - 2 CL 3 CC = 5 finals 2)Egypt - 3 CL 1 CC = 4 finals 3)South Africa - 2 CL 2 CC = 4 finals 4)Algeria - 2 CL 1 CC = 3 finals 5)Tunisia - 2 CC = 2 finals 6)Morocco - 1 CL = 1 final 7)Ivory Coast - 1 CC = 1 final In the last five years DRC have been the most consistent followed by Egypt in second and South Africa in third. The expansion was definitely a great move and it proved that Africa has more than just 8 good teams. The last 16 group stage was highly competitive like you said. The power in Africa is a lot more level compared to Europe. Here teams are able to keep most of their best players, making more teams stronger. Unlike Europe where Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern, PSG, Juventus and the English teams inevitably get all the talent. However, it will be more interesting seeing as next year the champions league might run from August - May following a new seasonal calendar rather than February - November as well as an expanded group stage of 32 teams. It will definitely be interesting for sure. The quality will also improve if CAF push through these changes this year as Egypt and South Africa will have 4 teams in the Champions league while DRC will have 3 teams together with Tunisia. Not sure about Algeria though but CAF will decide soon.