{"id":56855,"date":"2023-11-02T14:48:12","date_gmt":"2023-11-02T14:48:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/all-news\/afl-koller-insists-al-ahly-were-unlucky-against-sundowns"},"modified":"2023-11-02T15:06:40","modified_gmt":"2023-11-02T15:06:40","slug":"afl-koller-insists-al-ahly-were-unlucky-against-sundowns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/afl-koller-insists-al-ahly-were-unlucky-against-sundowns","title":{"rendered":"AFL: Koller insists Al Ahly were unlucky against Sundowns"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b> Edmund Okai Gyimah<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Rwanda. <\/strong><\/span>Al Ahly head coach Marcel Koller maintains that luck was not on their side as they were bundled out of the 2023 African Football League by Mamelodi Sundowns.<\/p>\n<p>Sundowns travelled to Cairo with a slim 1-0 first leg advantage before defying all odds to hold Ahly to a goalless draw in the second leg on Wednesday, November 1 and advance to their first final of the AFL.<\/p>\n<p>Koller insists his team was outstanding on the day but luck eluded them, even when Sundowns played the last 10 minutes of the game with a man down after Junior Mendieta\u2019s late sending off, as they could not put the ball at the back of the net.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We played a great game,&#8221; Koller said in the post-match press conference. \u201cI think we showed a different type of performance but I felt we were unlucky.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe players and fans are rightfully disappointed with the result and that\u2019s understandable. We have to improve.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t think there is a team that wins every single game or trophy. That is just part of football,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>The Brazilians will now face Wydad AC in a mouth-watering final showdown after the Moroccan giants eliminated Esperance de Tunis on penalty shootouts following a 1-1 draw on aggregate.<\/p>\n<p>Sundowns will travel to Morocco for the final first leg on Sunday, November 5 before welcoming Wydad in the return leg clash in South Africa on November 11.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\">Rwanda<\/a> Follow <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/\">Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Edmund Okai Gyimah Africa-Press &#8211; Rwanda. Al Ahly head coach Marcel Koller maintains that luck was not on their side as they were bundled out of the 2023 African Football League by Mamelodi Sundowns. Sundowns travelled to Cairo with a slim 1-0 first leg advantage before defying all odds to hold Ahly to a goalless [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":56853,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,18],"tags":[760,763,4027,4024,4178,4177,758],"class_list":["post-56855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-sport","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-rwanda","tag-african-football-league","tag-al-ahly","tag-mamelodi-sundowns","tag-marcel-koller","tag-rwanda"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>AFL: Koller insists Al Ahly were unlucky against Sundowns - Rwanda<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Al Ahly head coach Marcel Koller maintains that luck was not on their side as they were bundled out of the 2023 African ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/afl-koller-insists-al-ahly-were-unlucky-against-sundowns\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"AFL: Koller insists Al Ahly were unlucky against Sundowns\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Al Ahly head coach Marcel Koller maintains that luck was not on their side as they were bundled out of the 2023 African ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/afl-koller-insists-al-ahly-were-unlucky-against-sundowns\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Rwanda\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-11-02T14:48:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-11-02T15:06:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sites\/23\/2023\/11\/sm_1698924943.602233.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"666\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/afl-koller-insists-al-ahly-were-unlucky-against-sundowns#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/afl-koller-insists-al-ahly-were-unlucky-against-sundowns\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"AFL: Koller insists Al Ahly were unlucky against Sundowns\",\"datePublished\":\"2023-11-02T14:48:12+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-11-02T15:06:40+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/afl-koller-insists-al-ahly-were-unlucky-against-sundowns\"},\"wordCount\":259,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/afl-koller-insists-al-ahly-were-unlucky-against-sundowns#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sites\/23\/2023\/11\/sm_1698924943.602233.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Rwanda\",\"African Football League\",\"Al Ahly\",\"Mamelodi Sundowns\",\"Marcel Koller\",\"Rwanda\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"Sport\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/afl-koller-insists-al-ahly-were-unlucky-against-sundowns#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/afl-koller-insists-al-ahly-were-unlucky-against-sundowns\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/afl-koller-insists-al-ahly-were-unlucky-against-sundowns\",\"name\":\"AFL: Koller insists Al Ahly were unlucky against Sundowns - 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