Talk about saving your best for last.
When the the clock ticked past 95 minutes at the New Peter Mokaba Stadium in Polokwane, Chiefs were staring at a deflating second successive defeat in the group stages of the Confederation Cup.
But Dillan Solomons came to the rescue deep during injury time when he delivered a speculative shot into the danger area but it was fumbled by Zamalek goalkeeper Mohamed Sobhy into his own net to make it 1-1.
Solomons’ last-gasp goal, which cancelled the opener by Seifeddine Jaziri in the third minute, breathed life into Amakhosi’s campaign as they have registered their first point of the tournament.
With this hard-fought share of the spoils, Amakhosi are now in third spot in Group D and they will be motivated when they visit bottom-of-the-standings Zesco United of Zambia in the new year.
Chiefs still have a lot of work to do because Egyptian sides Al Masry and Zamalek have six and four points respectively each and they have put themselves in good positions to progress to the knockout stages.
Zamalek opened the scoring after three minutes but it is a goal that should have been better defended by Chiefs because goalkeeper Brandon Petersen was punished for coming out of his line.
Petersen came out of his line but failed to connect with the ball and he was not bailed out by his defence which failed to clear the danger, allowing attacker Seifeddine Jaziri to connect with the loose ball and put it into the net.
The first few minutes proved to be action-packed and Chiefs nearly equalised when Gaston Sirino showed awareness of his surroundings to test Sobhy with a long-range shot.
In what could have been a delightful goal, Sirino’s long-range shot only managed the woodwork for safety.
In the 10th minute, Jaziri put the ball into the empty net but Rwandan referee Samuel Uwikunda adjudged him to have pushed Inácio Miguel in the tussle that led to him putting the ball past Petersen.
Chiefs were forced into two changes inside 20 minutes when defender Bradley Cross and midfielder Sirino left the pitch in discomfort and they were replaced by Paseka Mako and Mfundo Vilakazi.
Chiefs came back from the break with more purpose and one of their earlier second-half chances saw Vilakazi test Sobhy who was well positioned to parry his stunning shot to safety.
Zamalek also had their chances and the most dangerous was after 75 minutes when Juan Bezerra was denied by well-positioned Petersen after a delightful solo run that started in his own half.
Later, Solomons watched in disbelief when his short from the edge of the box flew over the crossbar after Chiefs launched a counter attack much to the disappointment of the Chiefs fans.
But he had the last laugh as his speculative effort, deep into injury time, was fumbled by Sobhy into his own net as they earned a valuable home point.
TimesLIVE
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