Ahli won their fourth consecutive victory, making them early red-hot favourites to wear the football league crown. Mohamed El-Sayed reports As the national football league enters its fourth week, it has become amply apparent that the team to beat are Ahli, the country's most popular squad. Ahli, aka the Red Devils, cannot put a foot wrong as they head for the title that has eluded them for four years. In the absence of virtually any kind of threat posed by traditional foes Zamalek and Ismaili, the reds retained their lead at the top of the table for the fourth consecutive week with 12 points and a perfect 4-0 record. In Cairo, Ahli came back from a 2-0 second half deficit to win 3-2 against bottom-of-the- table Ittihad of Alexandria in a dramatic encounter in the Military Academy Stadium. Clawing their way back from what was shaping up to be the upset of the season, the devils spotted the Alexandrian side two goals before notching three goals of their own in the final 30 minutes, much to the joy and relief of Ahli supporters who had begun to show up in droves ever since the team started its winning ways after the mid-year break last year. Against the run of play -- not just the match but the season as well -- Hossam Abdel- Moneim of Ittihad fired the visitors ahead in the 29th minute before Youssef Hamdi extended the lead four minutes after the restart. They were the first goals to be scored against Essam El- Hadari who until then had kept a clean sheet. Manuel Jose, Ahli's Portuguese head coach, turned the match around after introducing Maki and Castello, two imports from Nigeria and Colombia respectively, in the second half. Maki scored the first and Castello the winner in the 15th and 39th minutes. Emad Miteb, the Devils' rising star, scored the second in the 16th minute. The win gave Ahli a seven-point lead over league title holders Zamalek although Zamalek have a game in hand. In the coastal city of Ismailia, Ismaili won the derby of the Suez Canal region, edging Misri of Port Said 2-1. In a match of own goals, Nader El-Sayed, Misri's goalkeeper, inadvertently fired the home side ahead when he failed to deal with a cross by Ismaili's Ahmed Fathi. Again, after Hosni Abd-Rabbou extended Ismaili's lead in the 22nd minute, Ismaili's Sudanese defender Richard Gastin converted the ball into his team's goal to give the visitors a consolation goal. Ismaili have now collected seven points from four matches, not an impressive showing from a club that reached the final of the Arab Champions League earlier this year. While they rest in second place, it does not appear Ismaili will emerge as serious challengers for the crown after giving away several of their stars to Ahli in off-season trades. In other matches, Cement Suez punished Mansoura 3-0; Enppi hammered Cement Assiut 3-0; Ghazl Al-Mehalla edged Tersana 1-0; and the Coastal Guards drew with Baladiyet Al- Mehalla 3-3. In other developments, the Egyptian Football Association announced last week that Ismail Youssef, the assistant head coach of the national team, would take over as the big boss till the end of this year following the sacking of Italian coach Marco Tardelli. A Zamalek midfield star in the 1990s, Youssef took several training courses in Germany and worked with national youth teams as an assistant coach. He is also expected to remain an assistant in the national team when a new permanent coach is eventually picked. A choice is yet to be made but it is now certain that the new coach will not be coming from abroad. Minister of Youth Anas El-Fiqi announced last week that the team "will be led by a national coach in the coming phase. No foreign coach will be appointed to train a national team in any sport, including football." One local candidate for the job is Hassan Shehata, the coach of the second-division team the Arab Contractors which this year won the cup and super cup, an unprecedented achievement for a club not in the first division. Another name being bandied about is Farouk Gaafar of Misri who was Shehata's playing partner in Zamalek's famed midfield line-up of the mid-70s. The new head coach will be responsible for getting the team ready for the 2006 African Cup of Nations due to be held in Egypt. The federation has apparently given up hope of qualifying for the 2006 World Cup in Germany. Egypt currently has seven points in its Group C, lagging behind front-runners Ivory Coast by five points with just five games left.
