Tunisia was full of jubilation on Friday night, Esperance Sportive de Tunis Football Club won the African Champions League for the third time. The win could be said to be the best birthday gift for the club which will celebrate her centenary soon. Best in the sense that it won an arch rival Club, Al-Ahly Football Club of Egypt.

The feeling that it was going to be good for the entire country was seen right from the fervor felt in the morning on the streets which was equally reflected in the stadium Radès, where the mammoth crowd chanted hymns and slogans hours on end before the start of the game some couple of hours later.

It was reported that for the first time since the 2011 revolution, the stadium was never as full as it was on Friday which had more than 50,000 spectators seated and ready for action to begin. Lots of spectators were also seen in cafes around the state capital which where momentarily turned into viewing centers as was never seen before. While women and children gathered in their living rooms, with eyes glued to the TV screens, waiting with enthusiasm.

The roar that greeted each goal during the match was never recorded in the history of Esperance football club when it scored goals before. The team which was two goals down on aggregate from the first leg in Egypt made an unexpected comeback, scoring 3 good on replied goals to win the match.

No sooner than the referee blew the final whistle, spectators, many of them women and children threw away social barricades and went out on the streets, hugging, kissing and congratulating one another, screaming for joy and shouting “Champions, Champions” on top of their voices. Others were seeing doing the local victory dance, while the police who were deployed to restore and enforce peace in case of an uprising also threw caution to the wind and became partisan by joining in the jubilation, jumping for joy whenever a goal was scored. All through the night, cars and motorbikes crisscrossed the city, honking and waving flags.

For the supporters of Esperance and for the entire countries football fans, defeating a difficult team as Al-Ahly is no different from winning the African Cup of Nations. To further re-emphasis the reason for the joy and euphoria, it should be known that Al-Ahly is 8th time continental title holder who has dominated the African continent for years, was finally beaten hands down by Esperance football club of Tunisia.

The match was played under high tension which explains the presence of heavy policemen around the stadium during the second and final leg of the tournament. It will be remembered in one of my posts, i wrote about the purported award of 2 controversial penalties to Al-Ahly by an Algerian referee Mehdi Charef Abid, which led to the defeat of Esperance 1:3 despite the employment of VAR. However, there was no cause for alarm because the tension was quickly dispelled by the raining goals in favor of the Esperance to the relief of football officials who were weary of the palpable tension before the match.

One other interesting twist to this saga is the hundreds of Algerian nationals who also came to watch the match. The funny thing was that they did not travel to simply watch the match, but to offer their support for the Tunisians, reason being that they felt their compatriot, Mehdi Charef Abid did not represent their country very well with the way he arbitrated the first encounter. As such, it incumbent of upon them to travel the far distance and offer their unflinching support as a compensatory mechanism.

Congratulations to Esperance Football Club of Tunisia, the current winner of African Champions League title. With this win, Esperance Sportive have booked its place for CAF Super Cup Finals and next months FIFA Club world Cup in Abu Dhabi as Africa's representative. i wish them best of luck in the CAF Super Cup and in the FIFA Club World Cup finals ahead.

Truly, there can never a better time and a better place to get a birthday gift for a club that will celebrate its 100th year’s anniversary come January 2019.

ALL PICTURES USED ARE GOOGLE SOURCED.

Thank you as usual for stopping by. Sincerely @izge