Esperance v Al Ahly: A tale of two keepers in African Champions League final

Nobody claims the African Champions League without racking up the air miles, and if the competition remains determined to keep its powerbase firmly in one zone, the continent’s north, its leading Arab clubs have weathered difficult journeys to preserve their pre-eminence.

A final that pairs Tunisia’s Esperance with Egypt’s Al Ahly is a match of true heavyweights, a clash of familiars, but both line up for Saturday’s first leg in Rades with significant battle scars.

Not least the hosts of the first leg, an Esperance who came through a taxing semi-final for the right to take on the masters of African club football. It involved a 4,500mile trip to Pretoria, up against the monied South Africans of Mamelodi Sundowns, an expedition across hemispheres and diverse weather systems.

A goal up from the first, Tunisia leg, which had played out on a Mediterranean spring evening, Esperance arrived at a packed Loftus Versfeld stadium to face a formidable record: Sundowns had never lost a Champions League match there.

Not only that, they were then confronted with an autumn highveld storm so violent, play was suspended for an hour. For the Blood and Golds, as Esperance are known, this was ordeal by mud and thunder. And lightning. And torrential rain. And the intricate passing triangles of a Sundowns side easy on the eye and slick in their build-up play.

Into this would be pitched a goalkeeper who had celebrated his 20th birthday less than a week earlier, one who quickly observed that Sundowns’ preferred stadium for major ties, Loftus, has other secrets beyond surprise autumn storms. The bounce of the ball off a surface also used for rugby union and through the thinner air of a high-altitude city can be surprisingly elastic. It very