The Man: Flavio

Flavio Amado is a name who will be forever synonymous with Ahly and Angola's golden generation. Rarely has a player gone from zero to hero in club football. His journey has been incredible.

After grabbing the attention of Ahly coach Manuel Jose in the Africa Champions League in 2001 while playing for Petro Atletico having played against Ahly in the same group (both team went to the Semis and Ahly proceeded to win the tournament) Especially while leading his team along with fellow Angolan international Gilberto to a memorable 4-2 win against Ahly in Cairo and winning the CAF Champions League best player award. Jose tried to sign him in 2003 but finally got his man in 2005. The flying Angolan was far from an instant hit at Ahly.

In his first season with Ahly he managed just 1 goal with the back of his head and missed a penalty against Zamalek in the Champions League Semi Final (I saw him miss it live) but thankfully Ahly managed to dispatch their arch rivals 4-1 on aggregate. Neutrals (some Ahly fans too) and pundits alike attacked him and coach Jose for continuing to play him although he never scored. They were very short sighted. Flavio's first season was poor from a goal scoring perspective but he provided time and space for his teammates and helped Emad Meteb win the Leagues Top Goal Scorer award. Ahly won the league, the cup and the champing league.

In CAN 2006 in Egypt he scored three goals and was supported strongly by Ahly fans in Cairo. You could always here chants of "Flavioooo, Flavioo". He proceeded to etch his name in Angolan and World football History by scoring Angola's only goal in the 2006 World Cup in Germany. Still people were not convinced of his ability but his coach Manuel Jose stuck by him through the worst of it and man did he repay him in spades!

In his second season he was a new man. He proceeded to terrorize defenders with his aerial ability helped by inch perfect crosses from fellow Angolan Gilberto. He won Top scorer of the Egyptian League in 2006/2007 and 2008/2009 becoming the only ever African to win it twice and only the second African to ever win (John Utaka was the first). He scored many memorable goals during his time with Ahly. He dispatched Zamalek many times. He scored in a Air Jordan like moment against International of Brazil in the Club World Cup. His most memorable in my opinion was a header against Asec or Cotton (I can't recall) were it seemed his head had turned 360 degrees to head the goal. His final goodbye to Ahly was a winner against Ismailly to gift Ahly the league. His gifts for Jose would continue.

Flavio managed in his 4years stay at Ahly to become a fan favorite and place himself as one of the most successful foreigners (if not the most successful)to ever play in the Egyptian League. Even rivals that don't like him admit how prolific he was. It comes as no surprise then that most Ahly fans support Egypt first and Angola second in this years Cup of Nations. After all Angola has 1 Ahly player in Gilberto 1 ex-Ahly player in Flavio and an Ahly legend in Manuel Jose as Coach.

Flavio continued his tradition of scoring important goals for his Jose and Angola this year. He already grabbed 3 goals in 2 games in this years competition, all headers.. Two came against Mali in the 4-4 draw, the second of which was a joy. His third was a well placed header that gave the keeper no chance against Malawi. He is vital to Angola's hopes to proceed to the next round and all of Angola will be hoping the knock he picked up is not serious enough and he will be fit to lead the line against Algeria.

Flavio to me is arguably the best header in the world at the moment. Although only 1.73m??? (according to his wiki page) he possesses an incredible jump and the ability to produce shot like power with his head. I think the lad is a bit unlucky he came to Ahly at a more mature age because surely he would be playing in a top European team by now. He is 30 and so it seems unlikely top clubs would gamble on him but if he continues his current African Cup form he will be the tournament's top scorer and possibly we might see him the English Premier League next year. He currently plays for Al Shabab in Saudi Arabia.

All Hail Flavio

It Has Begun!

It was a rough start for CAN 2010 in Angola following the tragic shooting of the Togo player's bus were 2 people were killed and many others injured. An event that lead to the eventual withdrawal of Togo from the competition although rumors circling today suggest that they would like to rejoin the cup following three days of mourning at home. It's in the hand of the CAF now and frankly I would love it if they were able to reschedule matches so that Togo could play a part. They are a good team and deserve to play after the ordeal they have went through. Our thoughts are with them. What really rubbed me the wrong way was how coaches of European clubs mainly English flocked to comment about how it is unsafe for their players to be involved and how they would want them back and that the tournament should be cancelled and so on. To them I say shut it! Can you be more obvious? Is it possible that your main concern is the money spent on these players? Because you can't be really concerned for the players safety more than the players themselves can you? Clubs should learn to be more subtle!

The tournament went off to a flying start with a cracking 8 goal thriller! Angola lead by Flavio (x-Ahly) and Gilberto (Ahly) and under the tutelage of the fox Manuel Jose (x-Ahly) incredibly threw away a 4 goal lead against Mali who scored twice in injury time to level the score. No mystery who I was cheering for here,

ANGOLA 4 MALI 4

Flavio (36,42) Kieta (79, 94)

Gilberto (67 pen) Kanoute (88)

Manucho (74 pen) Yatabre (92)

Coming up

13:45 GMT Group A Malawi : Algeria

16:00 GMT Group B Cote D'Ivoire : Burkina Faso

Egyptian League Kicks- Off

The Egyptian League kicked-off yesterday evening with three games played.

Last season's runners up Ismaily came back from 2 goals down vs newly promoted Mansoura to snatch a precious away draw. Egyptian International goal keeper Essam El Hadary had his debut yesterday for Ismaily and conceded twice, news that I'm sure would have come as music to many Ahly fans' ears.

Defending Champions Al Ahly started off their campaign with a comfortable 2-0 victory over Mahala in Cairo. Egypt Captain Ahmed Hassan opened up the scoring on 40 minutes while new signing Francis Doe or Foreky (not sure which is the right name) sealed the result by scoring on his debut with a well taken finish.

Ahly opted for a 4-5-1 formation, which for some reason the whole of Egypt likes to call 4-4-2, with Doe supported by Abu Trieka. Ahly dominated most of the match although never really impressing and Gilberto looked really out of place in the new set up, still, on his off day he was much better than his substitute Eino. The only positive to come out of the game (other than Doe) was young Goal Keeper Ahmed Abdel Moneim. He made a couple of decent saves and kept Ahly up 1-0 with an excellent 0ne-on-one stop. He still has a long way to go to prove that he is worthy of being Ahly's number one but looking at his current competition he should do well.

As for Doe..check out these 2 goals in the MLS

Elsewhere Tala' El Geish and Arab Contractors played out a 1-1 draw. The rest of the opening week's games are to be concluded tonight with the highlight of the games being the newly rejuvenated Zamalek taking on strong Enppi