Sayed Abdelhafiz, Al Ahly’s director of football, reflected on Al Ahly’s qualification to the CAF Champions League quarter-finals.

“We are currently focusing on the upcoming challenges. We managed to qualify to the CAF Champions League 
quarter-finals after the result of today’s game against Al Merrikh SC.”

“We did not play well in the first half, but our performance improved in the second half and we equalized the score and secured our qualification to the next round”. 

“Football always gives us new lessons, and our players learned an important lesson today after conceding two goals in the game.”

“If we managed to defeat Simba SC in the next game, we will reach 11 points. This will be a good omen for us, as we qualified to the quarter-finals last season with 11 points and managed to win the title. The same thing happened as well in 2013 when we were also crowned as the champions.”

“We managed to secure our qualification at Al Hilal Stadium, similar to what happened in the last season, and these things make me more optimistic.” 

Abdelhafiz concluded that today’s game is something of the past, as we are now focused on our next game against Simba SC of Tanzania.