Bafana Bafana talisman Percy Tau begins life without Pitso Mosimane at Al Ahly on Sunday [20h00] when they take on crosstown rivals Zamalek.
Tau missed the first game against Eastern Company on Wednesday, which Ahly won 4-1. He was travelling back to Cairo on the day from Johannesburg after returning with the national team.
The former Brighton & Hove Albion star represented Bafana in the Africa Cup of Nations qualifier against Morocco last week in Rabat.
However, Tau is back training with the Club of the Century, who parted ways with the man who brought him to Egypt – Mosimane.
“Percy Tau performed a recovery session at the gym on the sidelines of the team’s training session today [Thursday] at El Tetsh Stadium. Our forward arrived in Cairo on Wednesday after finishing his international duty with the South African national football team. The Red Eagles are preparing to face Zamalek on Sunday in the Egyptian Premier League at Al Ahly WE Al-Salam Stadium,” the club said on its website.
The ‘Lion of Judah’ is expected to join the rest of the team in training on Friday. Samy Komsan, the team’s interim manager, revealed that the team would enter a closed training camp on Friday to prepare for Sunday’s match.
He has made it clear that they want to win the game and close the gap on their rivals. With 16 games to go before the curtain comes down on the Egyptian domestic league, Zamalek leads the standings, four points ahead of third-placed Ahly. However, Ahly have three games in hand.
The spotlight will be on Tau to see how he fares outside the tutelage of Mosimane, whom he worked with at Mamelodi Sundowns.
Bafana coach Hugo Broos this week said Tau was not succeeding at Ahly “even with a South African coach”. He has scored eight goals in 26 matches, contributing six assists.
“We don’t produce players of high quality. Our best player is Percy Tau, but he has problems with his team,” Broos said.
“Even with a South African coach who wanted him in the team, he is not succeeding. There was an Al Ahly player who said, and I quote that player, ‘Percy Tau doesn’t have the quality to play in the team like Al Ahli.
“This is not good. Percy Tau is one of the best SA players at the moment, and he can’t succeed at Al Ahly. I don’t blame the player for that.
“I just see what happens. If an Egyptian coach doesn’t like Percy, they’ll push him out because his performances are not good enough.
“[When talking about SA players based overseas] we don’t talk about AC Milan, we don’t talk about Sevilla, we don’t talk about PSG, we don’t talk about Manchester United and all those other big teams. We talk about Al Ahly, a big African team, and our best player can’t succeed there.”
