Holders Pyramids and record champions Al Ahly both crashed out of the African Champions League quarter\u2011finals on Saturday, losing to Morocco’s Royal Armed Forces and Tunisian Esperance respectively \u200con a bleak night for Egyptian soccer.<\/p>\n
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Pyramids’ 3-2 aggregate loss ended their title defence despite a 1-1 draw in the first leg in Rabat. The Egyptians won their first African Champions League crown last June, beating South Africa\u2019s Mamelodi Sundowns.<\/p>\n
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Rida Slim put the visitors ahead in the ninth minute at Cairo’s June 30 Stadium before \u2060Mohamed Rabie Hrimat doubled the lead with a 54th\u2011minute header. Fiston Mayele halved the deficit in the 62nd minute but the Egyptians could not find the equaliser that would have sent the tie straight to penalties.<\/p>\n
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“This is a historic win and a historic qualification for the club,” forward Youssef El Fahli told beIN Sports. “We have the determination to fight for the title this season and, God willing, we’ll bring home the club’s second continental crown.”<\/p>\n
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Royal Armed Forces will face fellow Moroccans Renaissance Berkane or Sudan’s Al-Hilal in \u200cthe semi-finals, \u2060hoping to move a step closer to a second continental crown after winning the African Cup of Champions Clubs in 1985 when they beat AS Bilima (now AS Dragons) of then Zaire, now Democratic Republic of Congo.<\/p>\n
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Al Ahly, the record 12\u2011times African champions, took a 10th\u2011minute lead through \u2060Mahmoud Trezeguet but Esperance levelled in the 68th minute when Florian Danho drove in from outside the box past goalkeeper Mostafa Shobeir.<\/p>\n
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The Tunisian champions went ahead in the 78th when Mohamed Amine \u2060Tougai converted a penalty. Although Ahly drew level at 2-2 in the 84th minute via an own goal by Hamza Jelassi from a Marwan Othman header, Jelassi redeemed \u2060himself with a 94\u2011minute winner from a Youssef Msakni corner to complete a second-leg 3-2 victory for a 4-2 win on aggregate.<\/p>\n
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Esperance will face Mamelodi Sundowns or Mali’s Stade Malien in the semi\u2011finals.<\/p>\n
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–Reuters–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":29529,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-29528","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Holders Pyramids and record champions Al Ahly both crashed out of the African Champions League quarter\u2011finals on Saturday,","published_date":"2026-03-22 09:15:56","news_description":"Holders Pyramids and record champions Al Ahly both crashed out of the African Champions League quarter\u2011finals on Saturday,","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/29528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/29528\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29530,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/29528\/revisions\/29530"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=29528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}