Ittihad eliminated on penalties


Ittihad Alexandria's African adventure came to an early end on Friday as they exited the Confederation Cup after slumping to a 4-2 defeat on penalties against Tunisia's Esperance.


Match report:

1st Half:
Ittihad could have scored already 15 minutes from kick-off when Faroul went one-on-one with Esperance goalkeeper Jean-Jacques Tizie only to send a powerless shot straight into the Ivorian’s hands.


Geddo also squandered a number of great chances to score when he rounded his way into the Tunisian area and fired the ball towards Tizie in the 22nd minute and then fired the ball past the Esperance post in the 43rd minute.

Follow up:

Second Half:

Geddo crowned his efforts throughout the match when he made use of an Esperance defensive blunder and sent the ball into the net in the 47th minute.
The Goal Mohamed "Geddo" Ismail scored for Ittihad two minutes after the re-start gave the home side an aggregate 1-1 draw. Ittihad was denied on a number of excellent goal scoring opportunities throughout the entire second half, losing their chance to qualify to the round of 16.


The 1-1 aggregate score-line meant that a penalty shoot-out had to decide who advanced to the last 16 in the African Confederation Cup competition.




Penalty Shoot-Out:


Ibrahim Al-Shayeb and Hossam Abdel-Menem score Ittihad’s two goals in the penalty shootout, while Mohamed Farouk and Omar Islam squandered their chances to get their team to the round of 16.


Esperance player´s Kamel Zaiem, Marcos Dos Santos, Radhouane Ben Ouanes all hit the target in the shootout to hand their side the qualification ticket to the next round.


Worth a mention is the fact that the Kenyan match referee made Esperance’s Walid Tayeb repeat his spot-kick four times, while Ittihad’s Abdul-Monem’s had to repeat his shot once.


Esperance will next face Moroccan powerhouse Raja Casablanca in the Confederation Cup round of 16.
The match witnessed an excessively rough Tunisian side, who took advantage of the Kenyan referee’s below-par performance and engaged in rough attacks on the Ittihad players.