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Soccer News of Sunday, 11 February 2001

Source: african soccer/allafrica.com

Zamalek Aim For Hat-trick As Hearts Target Clean Sweep

Ghana's Hearts of Oak will host Zamalek of Egypt in the African Super Cup final in Kumasi on Sunday to decide the 'best' team in the continent of the past season.

After winning the Champions League, a Super Cup victory should be the ultimate justification of Hearts of Oaks continental supremacy in 2000.

But that will have to stand the test against Zamalek with German coach, Otto Pfister, who has the secrets of Ghanaian football at his finger tips, after winning silver medal for Ghana at the 1992 Nations Cup finals.

If Zamalek lift the African Super Cup in Kumasi on Sunday, the Egyptian side will have the trophy for keeps after two previous victories in 1994 and 1997.

With Egypt's top scorer Tarek El Saeed leading the Zamalek attack, the next man Hearts of Oak should watch out for is the omnipresent Egyptian monk, Hossam Hassan and his twin brother Ibrahim, both of whom are eligible to play on Sunday.

Hossam recently bounced back from a hamstring injury to score in the league last Friday - his first goal after one month, since he broke the world record number of international caps.

Jones Attuquayefio, who is Ghana's new national coach will be looking for a win to soothe the pain of the defeat that the Black Stars suffered at the hands of Congo Democratic Republic and Liberia last month.

And he has the player to do just the trick in the Ghanaian footballer of the year, Emmanuel Osei Kuffour, who scored ten goals in his club's champions league success. Defender, Amankwah Mireku is back from suspension and striker Ishmael Addo returns from under-20 national team duties as well.

Attuquayefio has some new signings to consider for the line up, including Bernard Dong-Bortey, who was a star under him when Ghana won the junior Nations Cup in Guinea two years ago.

The match was moved to Kumasi, Ghana's second largest city, following crowd trouble at the Champions League final second-leg match between Hearts and Esperance of Tunisia.

Teargas was fired and play was held up for 20 minutes, after a section of the crowd began to hurl objects at the Hearts of Oak bench following an unpopular substitution.

Hearts were trailing Esperance 1-0 when the incident began in the 72nd minute. After play resumed, Hearts equalised and went on to win 3-1. The Ghanaians had won the first-leg played in Tunis 2-1, after coming from a goal down.

Zamalek are playing the Super Cup on Sunday as holders of the African Cup Winners Cup on December 10, after beating Canon Yaounde of Cameroon 4-3 on aggregate.