Asec Mimosa beat Al Ahly as Zesco prepare for Wydad

Asec Mimosa of Ivory Coast recovered from their 1 – 0 home loss to Wydad Casablanca of Morocco when they pulled surprise win 1 – 0 over Al Ahly of Egypt on match day two of the CAF Champions League group stage.

Al Ahly who are coming from a 3 – 2 defeat to Zesco United went down in the 23rd minute but they managed to pull one back in the 53rd minute.

The Ivorians ensured maximum points in the 80th minute as they condemned Africa’s most successful club to the bottom of group A.

Zesco United remain on top of the group.

The Zambian champions complained on the reception given by their hosts after they struggled to find a grass pitch for Monday’s first full day of training;

“You can’t run away from mind-games from our opponents because from the first instance they told us they are no pitches with natural grass available in Rabat,” Zesco vice chairman Dennis Banda said.

However, Banda and other senior Zesco officials secured a grass pitch later on Monday from newly crowned Moroccan champions FUS Rabat who denied Wydad second successive title after confining them to a runners-up finish.

Zesco trained on the FUS pitch on Monday night before shifting to Wednesday evenings match venue on Tuesday at Stade Prince Moulay Abdallah.

“We had to go to the other club that is based is here in Rabat and they are the people who said they have three pitches and that if we could pay for one of them, then well and good,” Banda said.

“But our opponents had clearly told us they were no grass pitches and only gave us an artificial pitch.”