Tau, the South African international who previously played at Brighton & Hove Albion, opened the scoring with a left-footed drive after eight minutes and doubled the lead 10 minutes into the second half as the Cairo club made a giant stride in their bid to reach next month’s final.

Kahraba applied the final touch to a swift counter-attack in the 75th minute to add a third goal and leave Esperance with a near impossible task in next weekend’s return in Cairo.

Today’s game was played behind closed doors as punishment for crowd violence when Esperance beat JS Kabylie of Algeria in their quarterfinal last month.

Al Ahly are Africa’s most successful club with 10 previous Champions League titles and have reached five of the last six finals.

They were runners-up to Wydad Casablanca last year.

Wydad host Mamelodi Sundowns of South Africa in the first leg of their semifinal tomorrow.