Sudan's top two do battle in a league of their own

DERBY DAYS: SOCCER CAF CHAMPIONS LEAGUE:Sudan's top two clubs face each other in the The African Champions League quarter-final on Friday after drawing 0-0 in the first leg.

IN A country home to more than 400 languages and dialects, just two teams have had the last word on the domestic soccer championship on 42 out of the past 45 occasions.

Plagued by civil wars, drought, and apparently endless political and economic upheaval, Sudan is not usually the source of anything positive. Sport seems of no significance in the midst of such chaos and suffering. But, often in such circumstances, it is sport that can, momentarily at least, deflect attention from the horrors on the doorstep.

And in Sudan, which boasts the oldest soccer league in Africa – starting back in the 1920s – children play the game even in the most remote desert villages. In the urban areas, it is an obsession.

Nestled on the western bank of the Nile, opposite the capital, Khartoum, three million inhabitants make Omdurman the largest city in the biggest country in Africa and home to the two clubs that have utterly and completely dominated professional soccer in the country.

While the rivalry between Al Merrikh and Al Hilal stretches back over many decades, it has existed in a bubble, generating massive local interest but largely ignored outside the industrial heartland of Sudan. Now, for the first time, it is being played out on an international stage.

The African Champions League, which began last February with teams from 40 countries, is now down to just eight sides – split into two groups before next month’s semi-finals.

Sudan’s soccer giants are both still standing and have been paired together. While it’s certainly not the first time clubs from the same country have met in the CAF Champions League, it’s surely the first occasion such bitter adversaries have clashed.

It has brought a local battle on to a much greater stage – bringing with it unprecedented hype, pressure and, quite possibly, never-to-be-repeated bragging rights.

The first leg at Al Merrikh Stadium in July was a nervous, ill-tempered affair, with 22 players all desperate to avoid conceding a goal.

Losing such a game was unthinkable to both sets of supporters and the uneasy stalemate was welcomed by the local police in particular.

There was no Croke Park-style stewarding. Anti-riot police lined all sides of the pitch.

There was no pitch invasion.

Familiarity, and the clubs’ combined strength, has bred contempt. In fact, the suspicion the clubs treat each other is such that is not uncommon for prospective players to be hidden to ensure the other does not have the opportunity to offer a higher figure and cause a last-minute, embarrassing switch of allegiance.

Sudan’s national team – managed by English man Stephen Constantine, who is quickly making a name for himself by taking struggling national teams, such as Nepal and India, and leading them to unprecedented success – is almost exclusively made up of players from the two clubs.

After a long and complicated qualification system for the 2010 World Cup finals, Sudan’s recent home and away losses to Ghana means their dream of making the trip to South Africa is gone – and the country have crucial matches against Mali and Benin in the next two months that will decide if they reach the prestigious African Cup of Nations in Angola next year. Constantine’s biggest battle has been to make the players from Al-Halih and Al-Merrikh gel.

The margin for error between the clubs is so slight that, in March, Al-Merrikh fired their German coach Michael Kruger after a 1-1 draw at home to their local enemy. It was just three months after Kruger had led the club to a domestic league and cup double, ending Al-Hilal’s five year dominance.

And the room for mistakes is even smaller this Friday just a five-minute walk from the scene of the drawn, first-leg encounter.

Another draw will result in Al-Merrikh exiting the tournament. Even worse for the away side, it will secure Al-Hilal’s place in the semi-final stage. Just as painful as losing to a local rival is witnessing them go on to bigger and better things.

Last season, Al-Merrikh pipped Al-Hilal to the domestic title by just two points, with Hay Al-Arab 24 points adrift in third place.

This season, the title race is already down to just two teams, with the Celtic and Rangers of Sudan already almost 20 points head of the also-rans. The absolute dominance has made the new battleground all the more important.

While Al-Hilal is the most successful club in Sudan – claiming 24 league titles since the early 1960s, with their near neighbour taking 17 titles in that time – Al-Merrikh have, up to now, held a significant chip in the bragging war. Twenty years ago, the Sudan club claimed the African Cup Winners’ Cup.

Watching Al-Hilal eclipse that feat before this season is finished is a real possibility. Already they’ve come agonisingly close – two years ago losing their Champions League semi-final, 4-3, to the eventual champions Étoile du Sahel of Tunisia.

A Sudan club could well be heading for the UAE in December to meet Barcelona and Argentina’s Estudiantes in the Fifa Club World Cup. In Omdurman, which club that is would be as significant as all the the domestic league titles combined.

It’s a long way from a rivalry that began in the mid 1930s when, in their first meeting, and lacking a stadium, the teams met in the town square.

This Friday they’ll meet in their biggest derby clash to date at the 45,000-capacity Al Hilal Stadium.

It is life and death. Though, thankfully, not as we’ve come to know it in Sudan.

Al-Hilal

v

Al Merrikh

Al-Hilal Stadium, Omdurman, Sudan

Friday, September 11th

Kick-off – 10pm (local-time), 8pm (Irish-time)