Cairo derby


The Cairo Derby is a football match between Egyptian clubs Al Ahly SC and Zamalek. It is a match between arguably the two most successful clubs in Egypt and Africa. Ahly and Zamalek were named by the Confederation of African Football as The 1st and 2nd African Clubs of the 20th Century respectively. Both teams are located in Greater Cairo and their matches are considered the highlight of the football season with a live broadcast to most of the Middle Eastern and North African countries since the 1970s. Usually the derby is played twice each season with 2 matches in the Egyptian Premier League, but it is not uncommon to find the teams meeting each other in the Egypt Cup, especially in the final, and in Africa's most prestigious club competition, the CAF Champions League.

The rivalry

Ever since their creation, both clubs have been the top clubs in the Egyptian Premier League, the country's top-flight football league. In the first half of the twentieth century.
They won their first league title when the Egyptian Premier League was first created in the 1948–49 season and won 39 domestic titles after that. Zamalek managed to win the league 12 times only.
The largest winning margin in this derby was 6–0 for Zamalek, known as Farouk back then, at the 1944 Egypt Cup Final, while the largest winning margin in the League was for Al Ahly 6–1 in the 2002 league.
Fans of both clubs can be violent when in anger, such as a match in the 1971–1972 season, which had crowd violence and caused the rest of the season to be called off. Numerous fights, injuries, and deaths have been reported before matters became more controlled due to Egypt's authoritarian regime. Yet many fights and riots still occur after derby matches between both sets of fans, leading the government to post even higher numbers of Central Security Forces troops in the stadium during the derby.
The number of fights have increased with the increasing popularity of the "ultras" movement.
Matches between both teams can be decisive. Whenever they meet in the Egypt Cup the winner usually goes on to win the cup, or at least grab the runners up medal. Moreover, the team which has the aggregate result on its favor in the league rarely misses the chance to win the Egyptian Premier League.
Non-Egyptian referees are often flown in to officiate the derby in order to ensure impartiality.
In 2018, World Soccer Magazine selected the Cairo Derby as the 10th most fierce derby in the world. Besides the estimated 50 million domestic TV audience, the game is huge all over North Africa, the Middle East and the entire world. On 24 February 2020, Zamalek forfeited a league match against Al Ahly, a few days after their match at the 2019–20 Egyptian Super Cup.

The Meetings

These meetings are the meetings in the League:

Statistics

Hat-tricks

Records

Biggest wins (4+ goals)

Honours

Crossing the divide

Due to the rivalry between the clubs, relatively few players have played for both Ahly and Zamalek. Some of the players who have done so are listed below:

Al Ahly, then Zamalek

Zamalek, then Al Ahly