Zamalek’s exit from CAF Champions League highlights roller-coaster 2022 for Egyptian football

This has already been a roller-coaster year for Egyptian football. The national team reached the final of the African Nations Cup and then lost to Senegal in a penalty shootout.

Al-Ahly then took third-place in the Club World Cup but the defending African champions are struggling in the current edition of the continental event after losing two of their first four games.

More shocking is the news that Zamalek are already out after another defeat. Fans in the country will hope that the crucial World Cup play-off against Senegal later this month will bring much better news.

Zamalek’s exit is huge. But the five-time winners are walking away empty-handed after collecting just two points from the first four games in Group D.

After struggling to two draws against Angolan pair Petro de Luanda and Sagrada Esperanca, back-to-back losses at the hands of Moroccan powerhouse Wydad Casablanca meant that the Egyptian champions can — and indeed must — focus on defending their domestic title. The first of those losses, a 3-1 defeat on Feb. 26, cost Patrice Carteron his job, and the second is not the best way for new boss Jesualdo Ferreira to start his second spell at the club.

Needing to win against Casablanca, it was the visitors who took the points in Cairo with Yahya Jabrane’s penalty early in the second-half sealing all three points.

“The situation is definitely not satisfactory for the club or the fans but Zamalek lost their chance of qualifying long before today,” Ferreira said. “I don’t know the root of the problem, but I saw the players losing focus in the second-half, after we were better and more organized in the first-half.”

Understandably, the 75-year-old Portuguese boss was keen to point out that he had just arrived.