CAIRO: Al-Ahly were quick off the mark in defense of the African Champions League title with a 45-second goal setting up a 3-0 win over Young Africans of Tanzania in Cairo Sunday. Midfielder Mohamed Barakat was the scorer and also claimed the third while Angolan Flavio Amado got the other goal as the Cairo Red Devils shrugged off indifferent domestic form to win the second round qualifier comfortably. Young Africans, record 14-1 aggregate winners over a Comoros Islands club in the first round last month, did not threaten to score until the closing stages when Wisdom Ndlovu was denied by the wookwork. Players and officials from the Dar es-Salaam club boasted before the first leg of toppling six-time African champions Ahly, but Yanga never recovered from a sloppy start at the Cairo Stadium. Barakat, recently recalled to the national team after settling long-standing differences with coach Hassan Shehata, snapped up an Ahmed Hassan pass and break clear to score unchallenged. Amado added a second goal on 21 minutes and this also came gifted wrapped from the careless Tanzanians as the goalkeeper parried an Ahmed Fathi cross into the path of the arch predator. The match resembled target practice as Ahly created chances at will and after squandering several good ones, Fathi set up Barakat for the third on 53 minutes. Young Africans desperately needed an away goal to have any chance of salvaging the tie and when Ahmed Al-Sayed failed to clear, Ndlovu beat Palestinian goalkeeper Ramzi Saleh only for his shot to strike a post. A pleasing sight for Ahly supporters in the 70,000-seat national stadium was the second-half entry of star midfielder Mohamed Abou-Trika, returning to action after the latest in a series of injury lay-offs. Ahly were among nine winners of the competition in action and Canon Yaounde of Cameroon, TP Mazembe of Democratic Republic of Congo, ASEC Mimosas of Ivory Coast, Asante Kotoko of Ghana and Etoile Sahel of Tunisia also triumphed. Canon won away for the second consecutive round with a Joseph Amboem goal settling a clash with Angolan army club Primeiro Agosto in Luanda while ASEC built a 2-0 lead in Abidjan over Etoile Filante of Burkina Faso. Mazembe, who supplied 14 of the DRC squad that won the first African Nations Championship last weekend in Ivory Coast, showed no after effects of national celebrations as they romped to a 3-0 win over Angolan visitors Petro Atletico. Following a first-half exchange of goals, Steven Oduro and Alex Asamoah were on target to earn the Porcupine Warriors of Kotoko a 3-1 home win over Champions League debutants Al-Ittihad Khemisset from Morocco. Etoile Sahel were the least happy victors as they had to come from behind to edge ASO Chlef of Algeria 2-1 in their Mediterranean fortress of Sousse and face a difficult away assignment next month. The other three former champions flopped with Jeunesse Sportive Kayblie of Algeria and Club Africain of Tunisia losing at home and FAR Rabat of Morocco on the road. Kabylie went down 2-1 to usually poor travelers Al-Ahly of Libya with Ahmed Saad and Oussama Fezane on target for the Tripoli club before Idrissa Coulibaly reduced arrears. Club lost by the same score to Djoliba of Mali in a rerun of a 2008 African Confederation Cup tie that failed to deliver a single goal over two legs while FAR slumped 3-1 to Heartland in Nigeria. Return matches are slated for April 3-5 with the traditional two-week gap between matches stretched to three because of 2010 World Cup-African Nations Cup qualifiers.
