we might need a photo finish!!

April 24th, 2009 | by: Tamim | Comments(14)

So we have one hell of a heated league this season, the best since 2001 as we mayn’t know the champion coming up from the fierce battle between Ahly and Ismaily until the last match day.

Fueled this competition was yesterday’s derby where Zamalek, way out of the competition lying 6th in the table, refused to end the season without leaving his impact; last night’s draw means that Ismaily remains top of the table with a one point difference from al Ahly with three remaining matches for them while Ahly has 4 matches remaining.

How are things going from here?

Ismaily

They will have to play home (although not real home as they have to play in another stadium without fans because of renovations at Ismailia stadium) against Zamalek then with telecom Egypt then finally against Tersana (both serious relegation candidate)

Ahly

Will have to play against Tersana, Haras El Hdod, ENPPI and el geisha; very tuff matches in which they can even lose more points if they don’t restore things.

If Ahly draws one more match then both teams will be equal in points but again Zamalek will have to say his word because if they beat Ismaily then game over, theoretically though.

Back to the game which was the most competitive derby I have seen in years where both sides exchanged dominance during the two halves of the game.

Zamalek impressed in the first half especially through counter and side attacks but they missed the good striker who could put the ball in the net; however, Abu Trika could have scored early in the game if it wasn’t for the post

In the second half Ahly returned to control the game but failed to create dangerous scoring chances except from Abu Trika’s free kick and a couple of chances also for Abu Trika.

For a more biased analysis visit Midos at Zamalek offside or write your own analysis for Ahly blog

So

What does this mean for the national team?

- It means that new players are becoming too good to be ignored, to be more specific I mean Hazem Emam

Take a look

Also there is Sabry Rahil, Zamalek’s left back and Mohamed Samir, Ahly’s stopper who impressed during the game.

-it means that even if El Hadary is suspended we have another great goalkeeper called Abdel Wahed El Sayed who proved his class with his superb two saves of two real chances on goal.

-it means Shehata will have more choices to pick from; increased competition means more players will be in a good form ahead of the crucial match against Algeria

So let’s wait and see how things will end up