However, the Red Devils are keen to make it third time lucky and pick their first ever away win over Simba, when the two sides clash on Wednesday evening in the quarter finals of the inaugural edition of the African Football League (AFL).

Skipper Mohamed El Shenawy says they are not deterred by the past two losses in Tanzania, and remains confident they are in good shape to win on Friday.

“In both occasions, when we lost here, we went all the way to the final and in one occasion we won the cup. So for us, what is important is the 180 minutes, not just the 90 minutes here in Dar es Salaam,” said the keeper.

He has reiterated that their ambition is to go on and win the inaugural AFL title, adding on to the 11 champions League crownd they have in their names.

“This is our character in Al Ahly, that we always want to fight to be winners. Since everyone of us was born we are like this. We must always fight for the next title. The titles we have won before is history and we are not looking at that. We want to achieve something new, and we want to do that with this new tournament,” El Shenawy said, speaking on Thursday morning in Dar es Salaam, during the pre-match press conference.

His sentiments are shared by his head coach Marcel Koller, who said the team has trained well and picked up good momentum, heading to the match on Friday.

“We know we have a difficult team against us. Every team in Africa, when they play Ahly, they always double their efforts and have a lot of motivation to beat us. We will be fully concentrated and look to play a good game to win and make it easier for the second leg in Cairo,” the coach said.

The last time Ahly played in Dar es Salaam was in the 2021 Champions League season, when they suffered a 1-0 defeat, a goal scored by Mozambican forward Luis Miquissone.