All-Ghana climax to African Confederation Cup

The great domestic rivalry moves on to the international stage this weekend when Ghanaian club giants Hearts of Oak and Asante Kotoko clash in the first leg of the African Confederation Cup final.

It will be the first time teams from the same country feature in the climax of a Confederation of African Football competition, apart from the one-off start-of-season Super Cup fixture which has twice been an all-Egypt affair.

Scheduled for November and December, the final was postponed because of elections in the West African country between the original match dates and there were fears that political rivalry could spill into the football arena.

The decades-old struggle for supremacy between Hearts, based in the coastal capital Accra, and Kotoko from the biggest inland city Kumasi, is among the greatest on the continent.
Hearts-Kotoko clashes rank beside those between Al-Ahly and Zamalek in Cairo, Raja and Wydad in Casablanca, Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates in Johannesburg and Motema Pembe and Vita in Kinshasa as magnetic crowd-pullers.