After winning the Champions League with Al-Ahly: Koller becomes a pharaoh in Egypt

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The atmosphere is exciting, difficult to put into words. Nearly 60,000 warm-blooded Moroccans made the African Champions League final between Wydad Casablanca and Al-Ahly Cairo a hell of a job on Sunday evening. After a wild stoppage time of almost ten minutes, Al-Ahly coach Marcel Koller and his assistants lie drunk with joy in each other’s arms. After winning the Supercup and the Cup, the successful coach has already won his third title of the current season.

Marcel Koller, do you have tinnitus?
It was extremely loud in this stadium. Especially when we had possession. I have not suffered any hearing damage, but an ear, nose and throat specialist would have recommended a Pamir.

Have you ever experienced anything similar in Europe?
Yes once. As a player. We played with Grasshopper Club Zurich against Dynamo Kiev. In front of 100,000 spectators. They whistled so loudly that I couldn’t hear my teammate who was five meters away.

Football is a religion in Egypt. And Al-Ahly the measure of all things. Have you ever felt so much pressure?
The fans are very demanding, yes. But my experience is that you have a certain laxity to deal with the pressure.

Can you move freely in Cairo?
This is difficult. When I go out, everyone yells after me, cars honk, people get out and want a picture. If I want to move freely, I have to pull a scarf over my head (laughs).

Almost three times as many people live in Cairo as in Switzerland. How do you keep an overview?
Road traffic is very intensive. We have a driver and he seems to have eyes all over his head. Someone is coming from the left, from the right, from behind. From all over. I recently read on blick.ch that someone was riding a motorcycle with a child on his back. Here in Cairo, two children sit in the front, the man in the middle and the woman in the back. And all without a helmet. It’s different from ours, but you get used to it.

Egypt suffers from high inflation, the currency is declining and the country is more in debt than ever. Are you getting anything from the economic crisis?
Yes, there is a lot of talk about it, also in the club. There are many people who have a job but earn little. Of course you try to support them.

How important is football in such difficult times?
Very important. The whole country is a football fanatic. And Al-Ahly the biggest club. Of the 110 million Egyptians, about 80 million are Al Ahly fans.

You have already won three titles with Al-Ahly and are now about to win the championship.
The fact is that the fans are very happy with the situation at the moment. Because they see that things are different than before.

Will there be a monument in front of the stadium soon?
Now everyone is cheering, but if we lose the first game of the new season, maybe everything will be different again. Those are the challenges of the football business. First and foremost, it is important that after winning the Champions League, we focus on the remaining ten league matches.

Is that why you flew straight back to Switzerland after winning the final instead of celebrating the title with the fans in Cairo?
We celebrated in the stadium. Then at the hotel in Casablanca with our fans. There was a free night, the whole lobby was full of supporters. A family came from the US especially for this game.

Thanks to the victory in the Champions League, you have once again qualified for the Club World Cup. You played there against Real Madrid in February. And her team did surprisingly well.
It went well yes. Except for a few minutes. We were 2-1 behind and had a great chance to make it 2-2. Then we opened up at the back and ran into the counterattack. In the end it became 1:4. But we promoted ourselves.

You will turn 63 in November. Don’t want to take early retirement?
I never made big plans. Football is fast. I don’t know how to proceed. We haven’t talked about it yet.

Do you follow what’s going on at your heart club GC?
Of course I follow that and I think it’s good that people with a GC past are brought back to responsible positions. So that the fans can say: this is one of us.

You played 434 games for GC as an active player, won twelve titles and also became champion as a coach. Will you return to a leadership role at some point?
Like I said, I never made big plans for the future. And when I’m almost 63, I won’t change much either.

Source : Blick