Caf Confederation Cup: Raja Casablanca to face JS Kabylie in final

Raja Casablanca of Morocco and JS Kabylie of Algeria will face each other in July's final of the Confederation Cup, which will be played in Benin.

The Moroccan side needed penalties to beat 2020 runners-up Pyramids of Egypt after Sunday's second leg of the semi-final produced the same 0-0 result as the first encounter last weekend.

Six-time Caf title winners Kabylie had an easier passage to the 10 July final by beating Coton Sport of Cameroon 3-0 in Algiers to complete a 5-1 aggregate triumph.

In Casablanca, it took 16 penalties to separate the teams with Abdelilah Madkour converting the spot-kick that won the tie for Raja.

They won all six group matches this season without conceding and brushed aside South African club Orlando Pirates in the quarter-finals thanks largely to three goals from Ben Malango.

The physically imposing DR Congo forward came closest to breaking the deadlock in the second leg as his first-half header struck the woodwork.

Morocco has not been a happy hunting ground for Pyramids, they lost the 2020 final 1-0 to Renaissance Berkane in Rabat and fell 2-0 to Raja at the group stage this season.

In Algiers, Kabylie had sewn up a place in the final by half-time as they stretched a single-goal advantage from the first leg in Yaounde into a 5-1 overall lead by scoring three unanswered goals.

Former Atletico Madrid academy footballer Zakaria Boulahia was first to strike, firing past Coton goalkeeper Narcisse Nlend after a sixth-minute counterattack set him free.

Badreddine Souyah notched his fourth goal of the African campaign by converting a penalty on 37 minutes with a shot into the bottom right corner after waiting for Nlend to commit himself.

Boulahia completed the rout in first-half stoppage-time by tapping the ball into an unguarded net after being set up by Walid Bencherifa.

While Raja are set to start the final as favourites, they dare not underestimate the Kabylie Canaries, who have succeeded in every Caf final they contested.

The Algerian club won the African Champions League in 1981 and 1990, the African Cup Winners Cup in 1995 and the Caf Cup three times in a row from 2000.