They competence be a champions of Asia, though a Qatari side Al Sadd, who face Barcelona in a semi-finals of a Club World Cup on Thursday, are really most done in Africa.
Ivory Coast general Abdul Kader Keita done a initial idea and a Senegal-born Abdullah Koni scored what incited out to be a leader Sunday as Al Sadd battled past Esperance -- a African champions -- for a date with Barca.
Also instrumental to a side from Doha is Keita's brazen partner Mamadou Niang, a Senegalese general who was distant from his best during a weekend though like Koni and Keita played a pivotal partial in Al Sadd's run to a Asian title.
And afterwards there is drifting left full-back Nadir Belhadj, an Algerian general who tender in a English Premier League with Portsmouth and who had a palm in Koni's all-important second in a Japanese city of Toyota.
Others from Africa embody a goalkeeper Mohamed Saqr, a favourite of Al Sadd's Asian champions league feat final month, where he kept a South Koreans Jeonbuk Motors during brook to take a tie to penalties.
Like his captain Koni, a flexible Saqr is from Senegal though plays his general football for Qatar.
Belhadj was a other favourite in South Korea, sealing a Asian climax when he hold his haughtiness to net a winning chastisement in a shoot-out.
The French-born Belhadj, 29, captivated a attentions of Barcelona 3 years ago with his pacy performances during Portsmouth and has frequently been related in a British press given with a lapse to a Premier League.
Underlining a worldly make-up of Jorge Fossati's side, who defied a pundits in creation a Asian final, press conferences in Japan have indispensable an army of Arabic, English, French, Japanese and Spanish translators.
Fossati, a 59-year-old who formerly coached Qatar and his local Uruguay, denied he ever had a problem removing his summary opposite to his players -- an avowal formula behind up.
"I don't wish an interpreter (in a changing room)," he pronounced in Spanish, his initial language.
"The players know my English, nonetheless some can't. But football is a common language."
Despite personification for a Qatar inhabitant side, a defensive brave Koni, 32, has clearly not lost his roots.
"I'm from Senegal, so we remember that Japan helped us when we were in trouble," he pronounced on a nine-month anniversary of a Mar 11 trembler in Japan that left 20,000 people passed or missing.
"I'd like to give something in lapse and will do as most as we can on a representation to grasp that."
News referensi http://news.yahoo.com/al-sadd-asian-champions-made-africa-194913374.html
