Published on: 04/22/2022 – 10:21 The draw for the quarter-finals of the CAF Confederation Cup placed the two most successful clubs in Libyan football, Al-Ahly Tripoli and Al -Ittihad. A rare opportunity to get enthusiastic about football during this Tripoli derby in a country still ravaged by war. Relocated matches, suspended championship: the chaos in Libya has not spared football, but the supporters of the two flagship clubs of Tripoli have a rare opportunity to relive their passion for the time of a double derby, although it takes place far away of the capital and without them. Chance has indeed placed the two most successful clubs in the country, Al-Ahly Tripoli and Al-Ittihad, against each other in the quarter-finals of the Confederation Cup of the CIF. The first leg took place on Sunday April 17 and the return is scheduled for Sunday April 24. The Tripoli stadium is not approved, it is that of Benghazi (East), the second city of Libya located some 1,000 km away, which has been designated to host this confrontation. However, Benghazi is the stronghold of the eastern camp and its strongman, Khalifa Haftar, whose forces tried to conquer Tripoli militarily before being defeated in the summer of 2020 after fierce fighting. is played behind closed doors and few supporters, even the most motivated, would have ventured to make the trip to Benghazi anyway, while the country has been experiencing for several weeks a resurgence of tension between rival camps. , several dozen supporters took over the Place des Martyrs, a vast esplanade in the center of the capital, on Sunday evening to follow the match broadcast on a giant screen which ended in a draw (0-0). a sign that the situation is improving””The Libyans miss seeing such matches on their soil, especially in an important continental competition,” said Mohammed Al Mamdoud, a supporter of Al-Ittihad. “Seeing the public of the two teams together is a sign that the situation is improving,” rejoices Fayçal Hachad, another fan of Al-Ittihad, who crossed Place des Martyrs, where former dictator Muammar Gaddafi liked to pronounce his speeches before being swept away by the winds of the Arab Spring in 2011. This 18-year-old Tripolitan, wearing a red and white scarf around his neck, however, would have “preferred to support the club from the stands”. If the coastal road linking the two cities has although reopened last year, as well as air links, moving from one city to another still arouses apprehensions due to a climate of insecurity, and feeds frustration among fans of both teams. “I would have liked to be at the stadium but I would be afraid to go to Benghazi, because there are still divisions in the country. It is easier for me to go to Tunisia than to Benghazi”, regrets Mohamed Mokhtar, 25, a supporter of al-Ahly. It is that the aborted military offensive, carried out between April 2019 and June 2020 against the capital by the forces of Marshal Haftar, has exacerbated the divisions between Tripolitania and the eastern region of Cyrenaica. international community had great hopes of finally stabilizing the vast country of North Africa. After missing this electoral deadline, Libya has found itself since February with two rival prime ministers. Football has long suffered from the political chaos that has persisted since 2011. Between the start of the second Libyan civil war in 2014 and 2021, the country’s clubs and the national team played their international matches abroad, mainly at home. Tunisian and Egyptian neighbors. This long football embargo was lifted in March 2021. New Libya manager Corentin Martins 🇨🇵 was introduced to the media yesterday in Tripoli at the new headquarters of the Libyan Football Federation. 📸🇱🇾 pic.twitter.com/W2VB0FR1Mc— LibyanFootball (@LibyanFootball3) April 16, 2022 The results are still pending: the national team, which has just been entrusted to former French international Corentin Martins, has never won an African Cup of Nations (CAN), nor participated in a World Cup final phase, and is ranked 117th in the world. Only a few rare bursts of Al-Ahly and Al-Ittihad in the Continental Cups managed to intermittently bring Libyan football out of anonymity.For the rest of the tournament, Mohamed Mokhtar, the supporter of Al -Ahly, keeps hoping to see his favorite club qualify for the semi-finals, and play at home. Before a first continental title? With AFP