WeeklySA_AdminSPECIAL EFFECTS: Masandawana bombs out Wydad Casablanca to lift the inaugural African Football League championship
By Ali Mphaki
If ever there was a bomb at the Loftus Versfeld stadium on Sunday afternoon – there is no suspicion that it
was belligerents Wydad Casablanca of Morocco who were blown out in a huge pile of smoke.
Played under the scorching African sky and teeming with almost 50 000 yellow-clad supporters including Fifa president Giani Infatino and Caf president Patrice Motsepe, among the esteemed witnesses,
this inaugural mega-bucks African Football League final could have been a disaster of biblical proportions were it that the man seen setting up several wires on the stands was what he was suspected to be – not a pyrotechnician but a bomber intended to Gaza the whole shebang.
While the poor bloke suffered the ignominy of being accosted by the police from the stands,
his criss-crossing wires could have been a metarphor of what would transpire on the field of play as hosts Mamelodi
Sundowns went on to run rings on their opposition to secure a 2-nil win, 3-2 on aggregate.
True that spectators may have misunderstood the pyrotechnician – thanks to their ignorance – but were left in no doubt about Sundowns supremacy on the day.
The match billed “football versus football” as alluded to by Wydad Casablanca coach…, but the Moroccans were found wanting and duly punished having come to this game with a slender 2-1 lead from the first leg played at the Stade Mohammed V stadium a fortnight ago.
With their fans heavily outnumbered by the sea of yellow and devoid of their lazer beams, the Red Devils as Wydad Casablanca are known, lacked bite and seem to have lost the plot.
No doubt its going to be a long flight back home for Wydad Casablanca who dismally failed to display the same stage effects
as in the first leg of the final of this eight team tournament.
And who can blame the overwhelmed ‘Downs coach Rulani Mokoena for his tears of joy, the 35-year-old mentor having written his club and his name into the annals of African and world football.
Even when the referee added nine optional minutes towards the end, there may well have been some jitters and nail-biting from the local fans, but as coach Mokoena had earlier pronounced:
It was written in the stars.
Sundowns take home R75-million while the Moroccans will earn R55-million for their efforts.
