ASFAR Ends Title Drought Dramatically, Saint Kitts And Nevis Make Gold Cup Debut & More

By Neel Shelat.

The 2022/23 season is over, but as listeners of the Frantic Football Podcast know, football never stops. While transfers dominate mainstream news, we found four interesting stories relevant to the on-field action from less-followed leagues and competitions around the world.

🇲🇦 Morocco: ASFAR ended a 15-year league title drought

The Botola Pro title race ended in dramatic fashion in Morocco, as the extra time penalty proved decisive.

ASFAR were looking to lift their first league title since 2008 when they overtook the top spot by less than a third and kept it going until the end, but Champions League finalists Wydad Casablanca kept things interesting by finding the best form. at the right time and prepare the last day determiner.

The capital club still have the advantage as they started the day with a one point lead, so their fate is in their own hands. Ittihad Tanger who are in 14th place have nothing to play for so they were expected to handle it easily, but things got really tense.

ASFAR took the lead fairly early in both halves but were pegged back on both occasions to 75 minutes the second time. Wydad, meanwhile, comfortably built a two-goal lead into their match, so they did everything they could. It looked as though their efforts would pay off until the sixth minute of added time, when 23-year-old Reda Slim scored his second penalty of the game to take the title back to Rabat.

After a hugely underwhelming decade in the 2010s when they went completely trophyless, the good times seem to be back for ASFAR. They currently have national titles in the men’s and women’s leagues and are also holders of the CAF Women’s Champions League.

🇹🇳 Tunisia: work hard du Sahel ended Esprance’s streak

Regular readers of this column will know that we love our unconventional league format, so we have to highlight the one in Tunisia right now. It is also a good time to do so, as we finally have a new champion for the first time in six years in the form of the toile du Sahel.

The last time a team other than Esprance won the men’s top division was in Tunisia, the league followed a regular round-robin format. If the format was changed to make things more competitive then it hasn’t quite worked out, but of course it does make things a little more confusing. Here’s how:

In the first phase of the season, the 16 teams were divided into two groups of eight teams (Groups A and B). Within each group, the clubs play each other home and away in a regular round-robin format to produce the first phase final table. The only sure thing to be decided at this stage is some relegation places, as the bottom clubs of both groups are relegated midway through the season. From the team above them, the top four in each group advance to the winners’ group and the remaining three play in the relegation group to determine the other two relegation spots.

Here’s an example from Group A this season, where Esprance finished ahead of the toile du Sahel.

Moving on to the championship group, the team’s original points tally meant nothing, but things didn’t start at zero either. The group winners start with three points, runners-up with two points, the last place finisher with one point and the fourth-placed team gets nothing. They played each other home and away again, deciding the title and continental spot.

Pretty simple, right?

🏆 CONCACAF Gold Cup: Saint Kitts and Nevis make tournament debut

Another less direct format is the CONCACAF Gold Cup qualifying format and its association with the Nations League, but in fairness it has helped some of the less favored teams reach the main event in the US this summer.

The 16-team tournament line-up has 13 straight qualifiers: the top two in the four Nations League A groups, the winner of the four Nations League B groups, and invited entry for Qatar. The remaining three places are decided in a qualifying tournament held before the main event, consisting of the remaining A League entrants, the B League runners-up, and the C League winner.

These 12 teams were drawn into three separate groups, where they effectively played a qualifying round and a semifinal round. Of course, the draw was the underdog, so Saint Kitts and Nevis’ first opponent would be the preferred Curaao. It wasn’t much of a surprise when they conceded in the 22nd minute, but an 83rd minute equalizer took the game to penalties, where they recovered the better after both teams failed to score in their first attempts.

They then faced a French Guiana side who scored four goals past Sint Maarten in their semifinal, so they are back in the lead. But this time, they were the ones who took the lead first. Nevertheless, the match returned to penalties, where they celebrated the same result as all their takers held back.

With that, Saint Kitts and Nevis celebrated qualifying for the CONCACAF Gold Cup for the first time. They have not earned any points or even scored a goal in the competition and will not progress from their group, but the fact that they are is a huge problem in itself.

Great start to Claude Makll’s tenure as Saint Kitts and Nevis technical adviser.

🏆 UEFA Euro U21: Georgia drew a huge crowd and advanced to the knockout stage

Youth football is having a great year in Europe in terms of fan attendance. After Hajduk Split drew thousands of fans to the knockout stage of the UEFA Youth League in Switzerland, Euro Under-21s set a new attendance record in the group stage.

The tournament was held in Romania and Georgia, with Groups B and D based on the former and A and C on the latter. Georgia automatically qualified for the tournament for the first time as co-hosts, and have had plenty of surprises so far. They were drawn in a very tough group along with Belgium, Netherlands and Portugal and therefore expected to finish last, but they did the opposite.

All three of Georgia’s group matches were played at home to Dinamo Tbilisi, who have 13 academy graduates in their country’s squad. A 2-0 win over Portugal in their first game made them the talk of the town, so over 41,000 people gathered to watch them take on Belgium after that. A second-half comeback from two goals down meant that they needed only a point from their last game to progress to the knockout stage, so the excitement was starting to build.

This time, more than 43,000 fans filled the stands at Dinamo Arena to break the attendance record they set themselves a few days ago. The stands exploded when Zuriko Davitashvilli scored a stunning 42nd-minute opener, so although the Netherlands replied before half-time, Georgia ended the group stage top of the table.

Bordeaux Zuriko Davitashvili’s goal that offered Georgia first place!

(final)
1. Gorgias
2. Portuguese
3. The Netherlands
4. Belgium #EUROU21 | #Gorgie | #Davitashvili | @girondin pic.twitter.com/HKho9c6xLE

— L’UEFA (@UEFAcom_fr) June 27, 2023

An unforgettable knockout round could be imminent for the obviously very talented Georgia U21 side.

Statistics and images courtesy of Transfermarkt, FotMob and Sofascore.