Percy Tau ruled out of Al Ahly’s CAF Champions League match
Percy Tau has reportedly been dropped from Al Ahly’s squad for the CAF Champions League round-of-32 away game against Tunisia’s US Monastir on Sunday.
Egypt’s football website Kingfut.com has reported that Al Ahly’s new Swiss coach Marcel Koller feels that Tau has not fully recovered from injury to warrant final squad selection.
However, the Bafana Bafana star is expected to be available for selection when Al Ahly host Monastir in the second leg on October 15 in Cairo.
Tau has been training individually on the sidelines of the main squad’s session.
The Reds were exempted from the preliminary round of the continental league by virtue of being finalists of the last edition.
Al Ahly lost 2-0 to Wydad Casablanca in the final played in Morocco in what was then coach Pitso Mosimane’s last game in charge of the Egyptian side.
He resigned citing increasing pressure and has since started a new lease of life at Al Ahli Saudi FC in Saudi Arabia.
DOUBTS ON TAU
Mosimane’s exit seemed to cast doubt on the future of his signing Tau, who joined from Brighton and Hove Albion in England last season.
Nonetheless, Koller drafted the South African player into the squad for the domestic league and Champions League.
Tau’s contribution to the cause of the Club of the Century has been limited by niggling injuries.
The former Mamelodi Sundowns forward hardly played for Al Ahly when Portuguese Ricardo Soares replaced Mosimane on the hot seat.
Soares lost his job last month after an uninspiring third-place finish in the Egyptian Premier League and a 2-1 loss to rivals Zamalek in the Egyptian Cup.
Former Austria coach Koller has since been hired to steady the ship with winning the CAF Champions League a priority.
Mosimane set the bar by winning two CAF Champions League titles in three attempts.
MONASTIR DEBUT
Meanwhile, Monastir are making their debut in the continental competition.
The Tunisians eliminated APR FC of Rwanda via a 3-1 aggregate score in the preliminary round to book the round-of-32 place.
Monastir were runners-up in the Tunisian league to earn the CAF Champions League maiden adventure.