After they retire, many Zamalek footballers opt to train while those from Ahli select mainly administrative work in the same sport. Nashwa Abdel-Tawab talks to the players who went one way and those who went the other In the path of football history in Egypt, the two archrival camps, Ahli and Zamalek, made their mark in the making of the game. Ahli has taken the league a record 32 times whereas Zamalek has captured it 11 times, the second best record. They both share the record for most African Champions League titles, five apiece. But the role of the two Cairo giants is not just on the field; not necessarily off it either; it is somewhere near it. After they retire, so many of the players of both teams remain in the game but in different capacities. Many Ahli players have taken the superhighway -- the superior shining jobs at administration, marketing and media, shaping public opinion and the football agenda in the country. Zamalek stars, to put it one way, get stuck in jammed streets, usually employed in coaching. The legendary player Saleh Selim and former defender Hassan Hamdi ran and are currently heading Ahli club respectively. Only Tarek Ghoneim, an ex-Zamalek defender, runs a club, Enppi. Most times, those other than football players have been president of Zamalek. Ahli stars Ahmed Shobeir, Mahmoud El-Khatib and Magdi Abdel-Ghani are members of the Egyptian Football Association (EFA) whereas only Ayman Younis from Zamalek is a member of the EFA. Most of the popular sports programmes are presented by Ahli men, including Shobeir, El-Khatib, Mustafa Abdu and Taher Abou Zeid whereas only Khaled El-Ghandour, a former Zamalek midfielder, has his own show. Because of the club's inability to win any significant trophy for the past three years, like dinosaurs, Zamalek fans are becoming less in number, especially when counting the younger generation. "This current state of Ahli's superiority helps in the declining number of Zamalek fans and the increase in Ahli's supporters because of Ahli's current victories, successful management and prevalence in marketing and domination of the media," said Mahmoud Marouf, a sports critic. However, Marouf added that Zamalek's style of play will weather such a state of hibernation because of an artistic gene that won't die easily. In describing both schools, Marouf said, "Zamalek is a school that plays an enjoyable game, looks at performance without calculating victory and defeats. Ahli on the other hand searches for the shortest way to victory. Its administration breeds responsibility and endurance in its players to guarantee a generation after generation of Ahli achievements. Out of their 30 matches last season, even though it won the league title, only two or three games were great." Out of the 16 local teams in the first division of the league, eight coaches are ex-Zamalek players whereas four are from Ahli and four represent their teams. Other teams in the Egyptian cup are trained mainly by ex-Zamalek players. Listing Zamalek coaches on the field is not hard since their names once shone as players. Taha Basri, current coach of Ittihad of Alexandria, trained Ismaili, Arab Contractors and Enppi. Farouk Gaafar, Tersana's coach, used to train Zamalek, Masri and Ghazl Al-Mehalla. His assistant, Ghanem Sultan, was a Zamalek player as well. Mohamed Salah used to train Ittihad of Alexandria and Tanta. Tarek Yehia led Zamalek and Tanta and now is coaching Ittisalat, a new team in the league. Mahmoud Abou Regeila coached Mansoura and Zamalek. Gamal Abdel-Hamid, Sohag's coach, used to train Assuit, Damanhour, and Zamalek. Ahmed Refaat, Bahrain's coach, was at the helm of Zamalek and Syria. Ashraf Qassem, Mansoura's coach, previously trained Olympic. Ahmed El-Kass headed Olympic and now is training Al-Geish. Sabri El-Meniawi used to train Ismaili and now coaches Aluminium. "That doesn't erase the fact that some Ahli players went into coaching as well and were successful," said sports critic Hassan El-Mistikawi, "but the percentage of Zamalek players is more than Ahli players in the coaching field whereas the opposite happens in administration, marketing and media where Zamalek stars are less than numerous. "The schools mingle and give birth to new trends. Let's wait and see. I also hope that as we look for talented stars, we should look for talented coaches. But we should not take stars as coaches without weighing their coaching potential and abilities or as TV presenters without weighing their philosophies and mentalities." Ahli players do exist on the field as well. Mokhtar Mokhtar trained Ahli and now leads Petrojet. Anwar Salama took the African Cup Winners Cup in 1986 with Ahli and now trains Enppi together with his assistant Hani Ramzi, another Ahli defender who played for Bremen. Hossam El-Badri is an assistant coach to Portuguese Manuel Jose of Ahli. Former star striker Abdel-Aziz El-Shafei trained Suez Cement. Midfield maestro Mohsen Saleh was at the helm of Ismaili, Ahli, the national team and currently Yemen. The most famous coaches of the national team are Mahmoud El-Gohari, an ex-Ahli striker and Hassan Shehata, an ex-Zamalek midfielder. And both have done well in their two careers. El-Gohari remains the only person to win the African Cup of Nations both as a player and a coach. He was chosen by FIFA among the best 20 coaches of the year 1998. With the national team, he took the African Cup of Nations in 1998 and the Arab Cup in 1992. He went to the World Cup in 1990. With Ahli he grabbed seven titles and with Zamalek two. He also trained Al-Wehda in the UAE and then the Jordanian national team, following which he was honoured by King Hussein and wife Rania. Shehata's claim to fame as a coach was winning the 2006 African Cup of Nations. A brilliant midfielder for Zamalek in the 1970s, Shehata took gold in November's pan-Arab Games and was the winner of the African youth cup of nations 2003. Shehata was a previous assistant first team coach of Zamalek and manager of Dina Farms, Mareekh, Ittihad and the Arab Contractors, a second division team which famously upset Ahli and Zamalek in the finals of the Egypt Cup and Egyptian Super Cup in 2003-2004. He also had stints with Gulf Club in the UAE and Shorta in Oman. As a manager of non-famous clubs, he promoted Minia, Sharqia and Suez to Division One in three successive seasons. He has been manager of the national team since 2004. "Their input is great but Gohari's school of management is different from Shehata's since they come from different camps as players. Gohari stressed a form whereas Shehata managed talents," El-Mistikawi comments. What makes the distinction between the careers so conspicuous? Are Zamalek players fated to take one path and Ahli players another? Not really. Atef Abdel-Wahed, a sports critic, has an opinion shared by most experts and footballers as well. "It's not a spell cast on players but a route opened for Ahli players by its management. Ahli is an organised institution where its administration supports its stars. Unfortunately the case is different with Zamalek. The players are on their own. They must struggle to prove themselves and the only open field for them is coaching. Their star names get them contracts from inside the country and the Arab world." Tarek Yehia, a former Zamalek player and a coach, said: "When we left the field, we had many plans but we didn't find any support from Zamalek and its supporters. Still, we love the game, so we strived on the field with its stress and ups and downs without having the golden opportunity to run the game here in Egypt or even in Zamalek." Magdi Abdel-Ghani agrees that Ahli supports its stars. "Ahli backed us as players and after we retired. They understand our talents and helped us choose careers that suit us. So in the end it's our talent that brought us what we are. We make ourselves, but in the kitchen of Ahli." If so, then the making of football in Egypt is akin to cooking. Zamalek cuts the vegetables and peel the onions. Ahli players add salt and pepper to adjust the taste, and serve the dish. No one can deny that both jobs are respectable; no one is better than the other. But most would admit it odd that one particular career is almost reserved for the red Ahli gene and another for the white of Zamalek. The red and white blood cells of these two bodies just don't seem to mix.
