Al Ahly slumped to a scoreless draw on Tuesday against El Gouna in Egyptian Premier League play for a second consecutive league match where the Cairo club failed to earn three points. Ahly remain six points behind league leaders Zamalek with two games still to make up but the margin for error continues to decrease for the Egyptian heavyweights. New manager Ricardo Soares and his team will be grateful that they have a week until their next fixture against Future FC but there is still plenty of work to do for the team to improve its form.
El Gouna, sitting near the relegation zone, struggled to possess the ball and were dominated for long stretches by the favorites but remained defensively solid. The best opportunity of the first half came just before halftime when Ahly left back Ali Maâloul picked out Salah Mohsen with a cross but the forward sent his header off the crossbar.
The chances came with more intensity in the second half but Ahly failed to find a way past El Gouna goalkeeper Emad El Sayed. After El Sayed accidentally tapped a free kick and played the ball again, an indirect free kick from six yards out saw Maâloul blast his effort over the bar. Towards the end young Ahly winger Ziad Tarek made an excellent run down the right wing but after his cross skipped through to Mohamed Sherif, the forward’s shot was well kept out by El Sayed.
Highlights from Ahly’s draw are below followed by the lone 2021-22 Egypt Cup match on Tuesday, a decisive 6-1 victory for Smouha over second tier side Kafr El Sheikh.
El Gouna 0-0 Al Ahly
Egypt Cup: Smouha 6-1 Kafr El Sheikh
