South African striker Fagrie Lakay’s slim hopes of winning the Egyptian Premier League title ended on Monday evening following his Pyramids FC’s 1-0 loss to Future FC to gift the championship to Zamalek.
Lakay, who has been in good scoring form at Pyramids since his switch from Cape Town City in January this year, played in the entire game, which unfortunately ended in a loss.
Pyramids joined Al Ahly in crashing out of the race, as both teams cannot go beyond the 75 points that the Jesualdo Ferreira-coached Zamalek have now with three games to the finish line.
The furthest Pyramids and Ahly can go if they win their remaining two and three games is 74 points and 73 points, respectively.
Therefore, Zamalek are champions-designate making it their 15th league title with the official coronation ceremony scheduled for Tuesday when they face Ittihad away in Alexandria in an academic match.
Zamalek could, in fact, make it a double as they face Al Marsy in the Egyptian Cup, with a meeting against Ahly a possibility.
Al Ahly saw their fortunes decline further on Sunday when they drew 0-0 against Ismaily to cast further doubt on the future of Portuguese coach Ricardo Soares who succeeded South Africa Pitso Mosimane in June.
Soares insisted that he is building for the future, but the club’s fans are becoming impatient as a trophyless season looms, amid calls for the celebrated Mosimane to return.
The former Mamelodi Sundowns coach resigned due to growing pressure even though he took Al Ahly to three CAF Champions League finals inside 21 months on the job and won it twice.
“I want to thank our youngsters for their efforts. I’m very proud of them. We know it’s very hard for them to play altogether without having the support of the senior players,” Soares told Al Ahly official website.
“The most important thing for me is the future of Al Ahly. Throughout the past period, we identified our weaknesses and are now looking to fix those weaknesses in order to enter the new season in the best shape and form.”
