Al-Ahly’s gain at the top .. Will Badji reserve his seat in the Fyler formation?

11:06 AM

Sunday 23 August 2020

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Books – Omar Qura:

Zamalek ended the unbeaten series for Al-Ahly after being dropped at Cairo Stadium with a score (3-1) at the top of the 21st round of the Egyptian League, but the Red Genie won an individual victory after Senegalese striker Aliou Badji’s brilliance at the 120th summit of the competition.

Al-Ahly coach Rene Fyler preferred to rely on Aliou Badji to lead the team’s attack, facing Zamalek, rather than starting with Marwan Mohsen, while relying on Nigerian Junior Ajay in his primary position as a wing.

That match recorded Badji’s first major appearance with Al-Ahly in the league and his first full participation in all competitions during the current season, to be the only source of danger for his team against Zamalek over the course of his 100-minute participation.

Badji had four chances to face Zamalek in general, half of them came between the posts and the bar, with a success rate of 50%, and Mohammed Abu Jabal, the goalkeeper of Zamalek, tackled them, while the most prominent opportunity was that hit the post and the latter went far from goal.

Badji showed his distinction in the air balls, taking advantage of his height, which gave him superiority over the defenders of Zamalek, as he took advantage of two crosses inside the penalty area to divert it with his vertical strikes, the first striking the right post and Abu Jabal brilliantly confronting the second.

In the presence of Badji in the depth of the penalty area, Fyler’s reliance on crosses appeared to constitute a danger to Zamalek after sending his players 29 crosses (11 of them are correct), compared to the previous matches in which the crosses did not reach this huge amount.

In the absence of the team’s wings, in light of the injury of Hussein Al-Shahat and Ahmed Al-Sheikh and the departure of Ramadan Sobhi after the end of his loan, Fyler may change his way of playing from relying on the wings to sending crosses to Badji after his remarkable appearance recently.

Badji had participated as a substitute in the match against Aswan instead of Junior Ajay in the last quarter of an hour of the matchday before the last, so that the 22-year-old Senegalese striker succeeded in scoring a goal at the end of the match to conclude his team’s hat-trick on Monday.

Although Badji participated in five matches in reserve in the league before facing Zamalek, he managed to score two goals and create the same in 180 minutes, playing in the Egyptian League, in addition to his contribution to the passes leading directly to an attempt on goal.

Badji’s heat map against Zamalek:

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