Titleholders Al-Ahly are on a tough mission on Wednesday night when they host el-Masri in the Egyptian Premier League in Cairo. Ahmed Hassan, Mohamed Barakat and Emad Met'eb will be leading the Red Devils' attack. Al-Ahly top the league with 40 points, but they have stumbled in some of their league games, as the players are tired after playing in the African Cup of Nations in Angola last January, according to Al-Ahly's coach Hossam el-Badri. In Wednesday night's game, Al-Ahly will miss Liberian Francis Doe due to injury, while his teammate Abou Treika will be sitting on the bench as he's not expected to be completely match fit. Goalkeeper Sherif Ekrami, Wael Gomaa, Ahmed el-Sayyed, Ahmed Ali, Hossam Ashour and Ahmed Shoukri will probably all be playing tonight. El-Badri stressed that his team are in great shape. Meanwhile, el-Masri's President Kamel Abou Ali has called on his players to put on well, promising to double their bonuses if they beat the mighty Red Devils. El-Masri's coach Theo Buecker of Germany, during their last training session ahead of the game, described Al-Ahly ‘an open book'. El-Masri miss Hani Saeed, Ahmed Fawzi, Wageih Abdel-Athim and Ahmed Othman, while Amir Abdel-Hamid, Ahmed Nasser el-Shenawi, Bahaa Ahmed, Amr el-Dessouqi, Osama Azab, Walid Soleiman and Abdel-Salam Nagah will all be playing. El-Masri lie in 11th place with 21 points.
