Ghana defender Harrison Afful scored midway through the first half to give Tunisian club Esperance a 1-0 victory over Moroccan visitors Wydad Casablanca Saturday and the African Champions League trophy. Afful darted down the right flank, cut inside and unleashed an unstoppable left-foot shot that flew past stand-in goalkeeper Yassine Bounou for the tie-clincher after a 0-0 first-leg draw in Casablanca last Sunday. Wydad was reduced to 10 men in first-half stoppage time when defender Mourad El Massane was red carded after an off-the-ball incident with giant Cameroonian striker Yannick Ndjeng. Esperance won the competition in 1994 when it was called the African Champions Cup and has finished runner-up three times since, most recently when humiliated 6-1 overall last year by TP Mazembe from the Democratic Republic of Congo. The closeness of the decider was no surprise as Esperance and Wydad also drew twice in the group phase — 2-2 in Casablanca and 0-0 in Rades on the outskirts of the Tunisian capital. Success boosted the Esperance bank balance by $1.5 million and it has a chance to earn much more when competing at the FIFA Club World Cup in Japan during December with star-saturated European champion Barcelona possible opponent. Somalia, Ethiopia draw Somalia drew 0-0 with 10-man Ethiopia in their World Cup qualifier in neutral Djibouti Saturday as the last two of Africa's 22 lowest-ranked teams began their quest to qualify for football's 2014 showpiece in Brazil. Ranked way down at No. 192 of 208 international teams, Somalia couldn't make a man advantage tell at the end after a red card for Ethiopia on 60 minutes. Although Ethiopia is now favorite in the first-round contest with its home leg to come, the lowly Somali team needs just a scoring draw in Addis Ababa next week to progress to the main African qualifying competition and take its place alongside the continent's big-name teams. The East African countries met in Djibouti because of the security situation in the troubled Somali capital Mogadishu.
