Al Ahly vs Auckland City prediction: WORLD: FIFA Club World Cup betting tips on match 2023-01-31 19:00.
Egypt’s Al Ahly will raise the curtain on FIFA’s showpiece event of club football, the 2022 Club World Cup (CWC), against New Zealand’s Auckland City in Tangier, Morocco. Al Ahly perhaps have a slight advantage of making a substantially shorter journey than that of their Kiwi counterparts, though Al Ahly are entering the CWC as somewhat of a wildcard after qualifying as the runners-up of the 2021/22 CAF Champions League as the winners of that tournament, Wydad Casablanca, took the host nation spot.
That’s not to say Al Ahly – bronze medallists in the previous two CWCs – should be written off. This promises to be a much trickier conquest for Al Ahly though as they find themselves entering the tournament a round earlier than both those third-placed finishes, but having beaten Auckland City 2-0 in their only prior CWC meeting back in 2006, and entering the tournament on the back of a 21-match unbeaten run (W17, D4), confidence certainly won’t be lacking.
This game can’t come soon enough for Auckland, who are two months into their off-season, after they were forced to withdraw from the previous two CWCs. They’ll be making their tenth tournament appearance and their first since 2017. Now headed by Albert Riera, Auckland City will certainly have fond memories of the last CWC held in Morocco, pulling off arguably one of the biggest shocks in tournament history back in 2014 when a semi-professional Navy Blues’ side stormed to a bronze medal.
Since that triumph, Auckland City have lost each of their three CWC games. However, after comfortably winning the 2022 New Zealand National League, and winning the OFC Champions League in a canter, conceding just a single goal from group stage to final, New Zealand’s perennial underdogs will be confident they can pull off another famous upset on the big stage and lift a city devastated by record rainfall last week.
Players to watch: Al Ahly will hope a Mohamed Sherif goal would be enough to see them through to the second round given they have won 32 of the last 38 games in which he has scored for the club (D6). A similarly lucky charm, Auckland City have won all ten games in which Cameron Howieson has netted.
Hot stat: Both teams have scored in just one of Al Ahly’s last ten CWC games.