Hamad Ibrahim, the general coach of the Ismaili Club, expressed his wish to generalize the experience of placing replacement balls outside the field on wooden boxes.
The experiment was implemented for the first time in the match between Al-Ittihad of Alexandria and Ismaily, which was held at Burj Al-Arab Stadium in Alexandria.
Hamad said in statements to the match program on Sada El Balad channel: “Children collecting balls resort to this at times out of their love for the team once it advances in the score, and it is a bad habit. A league as valuable as Egypt is not permissible to talk about the absence of balls.”
He continued: “We were exposed to a situation where the ball was missing outside the field at Alexandria Stadium in the first round, and Abdel Rahman Magdy became angry at the child collecting the balls, and we were forced to go to apologize to the child.”
Al-Ittihad and Ismaily tied positively with one goal for each team.
Al-Ittihad player Benjamin Boateng scored the first goal for his team against Al-Ismaili after a mistake by Mohamed Nasr, the Dervishes defender, to give Christfao Mapololo the opportunity to be alone in the Ismaili goal before passing the ball to his colleague to score a goal.
The Ismaili coach commented on the goal: “It is normal for mistakes to occur in every match, such as Mohamed Nasr’s mistake, and this happens with all players around the world.”
Al-Ittihad Alexandria raised its score to 29 points in fourth place, the same score as Enppi in third place, while Al-Ismaily advanced two places by rising to 13th place with 19 points from 19 matches, which is the same score as Mahalla Municipality in 14th place.
Hamad Ibrahim commented on making only two substitutions for Al-Ismaili during the confrontation with Al-Ittihad: “Ihab Jalal, the team’s technical director, believed that the team was performing well, so he was satisfied with the two substitutions.”
He continued: “Eric Traore did not participate because he has not yet returned to his level, but he is making a great effort. We needed players with speed against Al-Ittihad, so we preferred not to rely on Traore.”
Ahmed Al-Sheikh, the Ismaili player who recently joined the team in January, participated for the first time as a starter after 3 matches in which he participated as a substitute: “Ahmed Al-Sheikh is a great player, he played his first match 4 months ago, and Ihab Galal, the coach, is trying to push him gradually, to be a source of danger alongside his colleague.” Abdul Rahman Magdy.
Regarding Al-Ahly’s next match in the league, Hamad commented: “It will be a big match and I hope we will be successful in achieving a positive result.”
Al-Ismaily and Al-Ahly will meet on May 1 at Burj Al-Arab Stadium, as part of the matches of the 20th week of the league competition.
