Al Ahly hoping to end marathon schedule with Fifa Club World Cup bronze

As Al Ahly’s players head to Al Nahyan Stadium on Saturday, they could be forgiven for feeling a glass ceiling pressing down on them.

At stake is a bronze medal, in what is, at least by Fifa’s definition, the most illustrious global club competition in football. Third place is more than respectable, but it can feel deflating if it becomes too much of a habit.

Since the Club World Cup was formulated as an all-continents event at the turn of the millennium, Al Ahly, Africa’s most successful club, have been its most regular guests. There have been two bronze medals, including last year’s; a fourth-placed finish; a pair of lost fifth-place play-offs.

For a player like Ramy Rabia, long servant of the club, the frustrating proximity to a final is already a decade-long déjà vu. He helped marshall the accomplished victory over Monterrey last weekend to guide his team into the last four. But, once there, the long list of injured or fatigued absentees told in the semi-final defeat to Palmeiras.

Rabia could tell a similar story from as far back as 2012, where a semi-final defeat to a Brazilian club — Corinthians — prevented Al Ahly reaching a final against Chelsea.

Several of Rabia’s teammates have their own tales of near-miss frustration. The last nine weeks have been a concentrated saga of them for Ayman Ashraf, Amr El Solia, Hamdy Fathy, Mohamed Abdelmonem and Mohamed Sherif. For those current Egypt internationals, Saturday’s bronze-medal match against Al Hilal must feel like one cliffhanger too many.

That group have been involved in no fewer than eight knockout matches for club or country in major tournaments in the space of two months. It would have been nine had Al Ahly not been obliged to play their Club World Cup