{"id":31624,"date":"2026-04-12T16:26:54","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T14:26:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=31624"},"modified":"2026-04-12T16:26:54","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T14:26:54","slug":"newcomers-safi-force-draw-at-usm-alger-in-african-confederation-cup-semi","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/newcomers-safi-force-draw-at-usm-alger-in-african-confederation-cup-semi\/","title":{"rendered":"Newcomers Safi force draw at USM Alger in African Confederation Cup semi"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Moroccan newcomers Olympique Safi rode their luck to force a 0-0 draw at former winners USM \u200cAlger in the first leg of their African Confederation Cup semi-final on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>USMA had an early penalty appeal turned down and two efforts ruled out \u2060following Video Assistant Referee reviews. Zakaria Draoui netted in the 54th minute but saw his effort disallowed, as was the case for Hocine Dehiri 11 minutes from the end.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Safi are playing in continental club competition for the first time and have surprisingly \u200cprogressed \u2060to the last four while USMA won the Confederation Cup three years ago.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>On Friday, Egypt\u2019s Zamalek were 1-0 winners at Chabab \u2060Belouizdad of Algeria in the first leg of their semi-final.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Cairo giants Zamalek are twice Confederation \u2060Cup winners, with their last success two years ago.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>They host the return \u2060leg on Friday while Safi welcome USM Alger next Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":30854,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-31624","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Moroccan newcomers Olympique Safi rode their luck to force a 0-0 draw","published_date":"2026-04-12 15:37:44","news_description":"Moroccan newcomers Olympique Safi rode their luck to force a 0-0 draw","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/31624","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\/31624\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31625,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/31624\/revisions\/31625"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=31624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}