Brave Kabylie reach African Champions League semis

Algerian club JS Kabylie became the first qualifers for the African Champions League semi-finals after forcing a heroic 1-1 draw at Egyptian giants Al-Ahly.

Title holders TP Mazembe from DR Congo surrendered their unbeaten group phase record when crashing 3-0 at Esperance of Tunisia and other weekend matches produced wins for Entente Setif of Algeria and Heartland of Nigeria.

Kabylie, winners of the competition in 1981 and 1990 when called the African Champions Cup, came from behind before a sell-out 74,000 Cairo crowd and played the second half a man short.

Mohamed ‘Geddo’ Nagy, leading scorer at the 2010 African Nations Cup in Angola with five goals, headed record six-time champions Ahly in front on 22 minutes off an Ahmed Fathi cross.

Saad Tedjar levelled eight minutes later for the ‘Canaries’ by rifling an unstoppable shot past goalkeeper Sherif Ekrami after his free kick rebounded off a defensive wall.

Kabylie striker Abdennour Cherif was sent off three minutes before half-time after a penalty-area dive earned him a second yellow card from the Zambian referee.

Substitute midfielder Ahmed Hassan came close to snatching a late second half winner for Ahly but his close-range header was superbly tipped over by goalkeeper Malik Asselah.

Heartland completed a disappointing round for Egyptian clubs by coming from behind to defeat Ismailia 2-1 in Owerri with substitute Chinedu Efugh grabbing the winner four minutes from full-time.

Mohamed Hommos gave the visitors a 30th-minute lead against the run of play on a muddy pitch in south-east Nigeria and ThankGod Ike equalised before half-time.

Kabylie lead Group B with 10 points after four rounds, Ahly have five, 2009 runners-up Heartland four and Ismailia three with the next series of matches scheduled for mid-September.

Nigerian Michael Eneramo became the leading African Champions League scorer this year with seven goals after snatching a brace in the clinical destruction of a Mazembe team lacking suspended midfield star Mabi Mputu.

Eneramo struck midway through the opening half and just after half-time with Walid Hicheri completing a surprisingly comfortable victory by scoring the third goal three minutes from the final whistle.

Setif, one of six former champions in the field, kept alive their slim hopes of making the last-four with a 3-0 win over 10-man Dynamos thanks to a brace from Fahem Bouazza and Youcef Ghazali completed the scoring.

Esperance have nine points in Group A, Mazembe seven, Setif four and Dynamos three and with each club having one home fixture to come, the Tunisians and Congolese are favoured to progress.