This result from the African Champions League final is actually pretty stunning, since Al Ahly is one of the traditional powers in Africa. They came away from Sousse with a 0-0 draw, so to lose on their own field in one of the toughest venues in the world, Cairo International Stadium and give Etoile du Sahel their first African championship... it's quite a result. And it qualifies the Tunisians for next month's Club World Cup, so in case anybody else was paying attention to that besides me, here's who's in it.
On one side of the bracket, North American champions Pachuca from Mexico play Etoile du Sahel, and the winner of that game goes on to play the Libertadores winner Boca Juniors, from Buenos Aires. On the other side of the draw New Zealand's Waitakere United, representing Oceania will play an undetermined Asian Champions League winner, which will be either Urawa Red Diamonds of Japan, or Sepahan from Iran (after a 1-1 draw in Esfahan, Urawa Reds host the second leg in Saitama, and I'd have to think they've got the inside track). The winner of that game faces the European champions Milan, and I'd have to say barring a stunning upset, Boca Juniors will meet Milan in the final.
Coming up before that are the last major qualifiers for next year's Euro, and to my friends with international connections (like any of you are reading this) please look forward to being endlessly heckled this Thanksgiving about your respective country's failure to qualify. Or just basically any country I choose to assign to you for the heckling purposes. As per my previous write-up for the one person I know who cares about this stuff, here are the big games coming up this month:
11/17
Netherlands v Luxembourg
Scotland v Italy
Israel v Russia*
Macedonia v Croatia*
11/21
Netherlands v
England v Croatia
France v Ukraine
*-While I don't know a lot of Croatian Jews, these two games determine whether England plays on Wednesday for a spot in the finals, or just as an excuse for 90,000 England fans to buy £90 tickets for a chance to stand and boo for 90 minutes.
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