Espérance de Tunis, a Tunisian professional association football club, has gained entry to Confederation of African Football (CAF) competitions on several occasions. They have represented Tunisia in the Champions League on twenty four occasions, the Confederation Cup on one occasion, the now-defunct Cup Winners' Cup four separate occasions, and the now-defunct CAF Cup one occasion.
History
Achieved three CAF Champions League (2010–2020)
The beginning was in the 2010 CAF Champions League where Espérance de Tunis reached the first final in ten years, The beginning of the journey was against East End Lions and ended with a score of 5–4, in the next round against ASFA Yennenga It ended in victory back and forth with 7–2 on Aggregate, in the last match before the group stage against the Sudanese club Al-Merrikh SC ended with a 4–1 victory on Aggregate, in the group stage draw, Espérance de Tunis fell in Group A with TP Mazembe, ES Sétif and Dynamos where did finish in first place with 13 points. Espérance faced Al Ahly SC from Egypt in the semi-final and lost the first leg 2–1 away from home. In need of a win in the second leg, Espérance were victorious 1–0 and reached the final on the away goals rule.[1] In the final against TP Mazembe, Esperance received a heavy defeat in the first leg 5–0 at Stade Frederic Kibassa Maliba and in the second leg ended 1–1.[2] In the same version, Nigerian striker Michael Eneramo won top goalscorers with 8 goals.
In the next version the goal was to achieve the title, in the first round against ASPAC FC from Benin where they won 5–2 on Aggregate, in the second round against ASC Diaraf won back and forth with 6–0 on Aggregate to qualify for the group stage. were drawn in Group B with Wydad Casablanca, MC Alger and Al Ahly SC finished in first place with 10 points to qualify for the semi-final, where they faced Al-Hilal Club ended with a 3–0 victory on Aggregate.[3] to face in the final Wydad Casablanca Where finished the first leg 0–0 draw and in the second leg at Stade 7 November, Harrison Afful scored the winning goal and won the second title in its history after 17 years.[4] To guarantee a seat in the FIFA Club World Cup for the first time where Espérance finished sixth after losing against Monterrey 3–2.[5] On 25 February 2012, Espérance de Tunis faced Maghreb de Fès the CAF Confederation Cup champion in the CAF Super Cup final and ended in a 4–3 loss on penalties.[6]
In 2012 CAF Champions League Espérance de Tunis reached the final for the third time in a row, this time against Al Ahly SC of Egypt in the first leg at Borg El Arab Stadium, which ended in a 1–1 draw. As for the second leg, the surprise happened and Al Ahly SC won 1–2.[7] after that Espérance de Tunis level appeared to decline, as in 2013 it was eliminated in the semi-final against Orlando Pirates on the away goals rule.[8] in 2014 from the group stage included ES Sétif, CS Sfaxien and Al-Ahly Benghazi. and in 2015, the worst Where was eliminated in the second round against Al-Merrikh SC.[citation needed] In the 2018 CAF Champions League, Espérance de Tunis returned to its high level in the Preliminary round. It was easy to qualify against ASAC Concorde and in the first round against the Kenyan Gor Mahia, Espérance qualified to the group stage with the goal of Anice Badri. Were he finished second behind Al-Ahly to face in the Quarter-finals Étoile du Sahel where they won 3–1 on Aggregate, and in the Semi-finals Espérance won against Primeiro de Agosto 4–3 on Aggregate to reach the final after 6 years against the same Egyptian club Al-Ahly, but this time Espérance de Tunis won the title 4–3 on Aggregate.[9] to qualify for the FIFA Club World Cup, where finished fifth after winning against Guadalajara 6–5 on penalties.[10] Then in the 2019 CAF Super Cup against Raja Casablanca, played for the first time outside Africa in Qatar at Thani bin Jassim Stadium.[11] ended with a 2–1 defeat.[12]
^With the score 1–0 in favor of Espérance de Tunis in the 59th minute, Walid El Karti scored a goal for Wydad Casablanca which was subsequently ruled offside by the linesman. Due to a failure of the video assistant referee system, a review of the decision could not be conducted. Believing the goal was valid, Wydad Casablanca protested the decision and the match was interrupted. After 80 minutes of stoppage, the referee ruled the match as a forfeit by Wydad Casablanca and awarded to Espérance de Tunis, securing them the CAF Champions League title.[29] However, on 5 June 2019 the CAF Executive Committee ordered a replay of the second leg at a neutral venue, requiring Espérance de Tunis to return the trophy and medals.[30] However, the decision to order a replay of the second leg was thrown out by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) on 31 July 2019, who required CAF to refer the case to its proper disciplinary structures for a decision.[31] On 7 August 2019, Espérance de Tunis were again officially declared champions after the CAF Disciplinary Board ruled that Wydad Casablanca "is considered to have lost the game in the 2nd leg."[32]
References
^"Esperance beat Ahly to reach final". cafonline.com. 17 October 2010. Archived from the original on 20 October 2010. Retrieved 21 October 2010.
^"TP Mazembe claim African Champions League crown again". BBC Sport. 13 November 2010. Archived from the original on 25 January 2011. Retrieved 14 December 2010.
^"Esperance reach African Champions League final". BBC Sport. 15 October 2011. Retrieved 1 November 2011.
^Esperance conquer Africa thanks to Afful goal Archived 16 December 2011 at the Wayback Machine
^"Coupe du monde des Clubs: l'Espérance termine à la 6ème place". tunisienumerique.com. 14 December 2011. Retrieved 12 June 2020.
^"Mas Fes win CAF Super Cup". cafonline.com. 25 February 2012.
^"Ahly win seventh ACL crown". mtnfootball. 17 November 2012. Archived from the original on 22 November 2012. Retrieved 12 December 2012.
^"Esperance 1–1 Orlando Pirates (2013 CAF Champions League semi-final)". fifa.com. 19 October 2013. Archived from the original on 12 June 2020. Retrieved 12 June 2020.
^"Bguir unlikely star as Esperance win CAF Champions League". CAF. 9 November 2018.
^"L'Espérance sportive de Tunis vient à bout de Guadalajara". sofoot.com. 18 December 2018. Retrieved 12 June 2020.
^Ntoka, Gabriel (12 December 2018). "CAF Move Super Cup Tie To Qatar". Archived from the original on 29 March 2019. Retrieved 12 December 2018.
^"Raja edge Esperance to CAF Super Cup glory". CAF. 29 March 2019.
^"ES Tunis crowned CAF Champions in shambolic circumstances". 31 May 2019. Archived from the original on 14 September 2019. Retrieved 28 November 2019.
^"Caf Champions League: Esperance ordered to return medals and face Wydad Casablanca again". BBC Sport. 5 June 2019.
^"Le Tribunal Arbitral du Sport (TAS) annule la décision du Comité Exécutif de la CAF" [The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) cancels the decision of the CAF Executive Committee] (PDF) (in French). Court of Arbitration for Sport. 31 July 2019. Retrieved 7 August 2019.
^"Decisions of the Disciplinary Board 7th of August 2019". CAF. 7 August 2019.
^"Match report – Second round – ES Tunis v Al Ain FC" (PDF). FIFA.com. Fédération Internationale de Football Association. 15 December 2018. Retrieved 5 June 2019.
^"Match report – Match for fifth place – ES Tunis v CD Guadalajara" (PDF). FIFA.com. Fédération Internationale de Football Association. 18 December 2018. Retrieved 5 June 2019.
^"Match report – Second round – Al Hilal SFC v ES Tunis" (PDF). FIFA.com. Fédération Internationale de Football Association. 14 December 2019. Retrieved 14 December 2019.
^"Match report – Match for fifth place – Al Sadd SC v Espérance Tunis" (PDF). FIFA.com. Fédération Internationale de Football Association. 17 December 2019. Archived from the original (PDF) on 17 December 2019. Retrieved 17 December 2019.