Tusker can do fine against African Champions Ahli despite missing two key players in their Round of 32 match of the African Champions League on Saturday, the Kenyan champions coach said. Starting goalkeeper Victor Onyango is serving a two-match automatic suspension after being sent off against Eritrean side Red Sea in the preliminaries and defending midfielder Jeff Oyando is in mourning after the death of his father. "Second-choice keeper Wilson Oduor covered the absence of Onyango and (Oyando's replacement) Patrick Ooko wasn't bad against Red Sea," coach Jacob Mulee told Kenyan paper Daily nation. "We know that we will take on the experienced African Champions. But for us, it is like any other match, we will play our game and get the result we seek."
Mulee, known in Kenya as 'the ghost', said he is worried over refereeing and hinted that Ahli would be favored by the referees in the second-leg in Cairo. "Playing the first-leg in Kenya isn't an advantage because if we humiliated Ahli here, they would be helped a lot by refereeing in the second leg," he said. "We all saw how the Egyptian national team was favored by referees in the African Cup of Nations, this could be repeated with Ahli." Tusker played Ahli in the same phase of the tournament in 2000 and lost 4-0 on aggregate.