Al Ahly defeated Zamalek 5-3 on Friday night to secure a historic win over arch-rivals Zamalek, bringing back the memories of the memorable 6-1 victory in 2002.

Ali Maaloul and Aliou Dieng scored two goals each; while, striker Mohamed Sherif kept his habit of scoring against Zamalek with a fantastic goal to wrap up the eight goal thriller.

Al Ahly moved to the top of the table with 9 points and will enter the international break in a very happy mood.

The first 17 minutes of the game did not give any sign of what will happen next as Al Ahly players failed to penetrate Zamalek’s defense but it was the silence before the hurricane.

Dieng found the room needed to shoot and the Malian did not hesitate to send one of his bullets into the net. The ball was deflected and was returned from the bar but Zamalek goalkeeper’s Mohamed Abo Gabal failed to control the rebound and put it inside his net.

Al Ahly did not have time to celebrate as Ali Maaloul made one of his penetrations from the left flank, receiving the ball and cutting inside, forcing Zamalek’s defender Hamza Mathlouthi to tackle him and the referee whistled a penalty. Maaloul was the man behind the ball to convert it making the score 2-0.

Five minutes later, it was the time of real magic.

Amr El Soulia did not have the chance to send a cross but the midfielder decided to pull out some magic from his pocket. El Soulia served up a delightful rabona, which was met with a beautiful touch from Sherif to make the score 3-0.

The White Knights pulled one back with an early goal in the second half from substitute Mostafa Fathy but Al Ahly needed just one minute to respond.

Dieng received the ball comfortably on the edge of the box and curled it in the top corner, giving the goalkeeper no choice to make the score 4-1.

Seven minutes later, El Soulia had another impact on the game as he followed a dead ball and reached it before Zamalek’s defender Mathlouthi, who was forced again to make another tackle and the referee was there to award a penalty.

Maaloul shot the ball and it was stopped by Abo Gabal but he failed to stop the rebound from Sherif who put the ball in the back of the net. After being consulted by the VAR officials, the referee ordered to retake the penalty and Maaloul was the man behind the ball again to score the fifth goal.

Mosimane used his bench, changing the whole attacking line of Afsha, Tau and Sherif with Luis Miquissone, Hussein El Shahat and Taher Mohamed Taher.

Also, the defensive partnership was changed as Ayman Ashraf and Badr Benoun were replaced by Yasser Ibrahim and Mohamed Hany.

Zamalek managed to add two late goals by a penalty from Zizo and a shot from Bencharki.

Al Ahly held onto their lead to win the Cairo derby, producing another night that will go down in history as one of the most beautiful nights in the derby.

Pitso Mosimane, Al Ahly head coach, expressed his happiness after the match.

“We managed to achieve a good result over Zamalek. My players played with a good spirit and were also tactically smarter,” he said.

“We scored five goals; three in the first half and two in the second half. I wanted to score more, but you cannot have everything.

“We are a big team. We are the champions of Africa, we are the team number three in the world, we are the CAF Super Cup champions… We are Al Ahly.”

Soka25east.com