Enyimba will finish Rayon Sports assignment in Aba
The Technical Adviser of Enyimba, Coach Usman Abdallah has expressed confidence that his team will beat Rayon Sports of Rwanda in the return leg of the CAF Confederation Cup quarter-final match this weekend in Aba. The former Kano Pillars assistant coach also said Enyimba are out to win their first Confederation Cup title.
How happy are you with Enyimba’s away draw with Rayon Sports in the first leg of the CAF Confederation Cup quarter-final match in Kigali? I am satisfied with what we were able to get in that difficult match. I had said that playing the first leg away from home will be a thing of advantage only if we are able to get a good result. I can say the away draw is not a bad one for us. We shall build on it. Our plan is to finish the Rayon Sports assignment in Aba.
I don’t think it will be right to say that we were out to get only a draw. If you watched the match, you would have seen that we did not sit back to be attacked by our opponents. We wanted at least a draw but we pressed our opponents for victory. A reasonable part of the match was played in our opponents half. Of course, they also attacked but we didn’t wait for them to attack us. We created some scoring chances to signal our intention to win.
We went with a game plan which they kept to throughout the match. Like I said before, we did not go to defend in Kigali. We attacked without throwing caution to the wind. It is one thing to attack and another to regroup in time when you are under attack. They played to instruction and I commend them for their show of determination and courage.
No I didn’t feel we were lucky because there is no small team at this level of the competition. Any club that has reached the quarter-final is not a pushover. So the moment we knew they are our quarter-final opponents, we began to prepare for them. The draw we got in the first leg didn’t come on a platter of God. We laboured hard for it.
The result of the match shows that we have got slight advantage now. However, the bigger advantage we have got is the fact that we have additional knowledge about our opponents. It is now left for us to come back and work on some of the things we learnt about our opponents. As a matter of fact, I was happy that we were going to play the first leg away.
You see we usually change our tactics depending on the opponents we are facing. I have been working on our defensive shape. Our build up from the defence has improved but it is still a bit slow so I am not completely satisfied. The central part of the team is also getting better. We are holding possession better and longer. However, we are having a problem with recovery. When we lose the ball, we need to close down our opponents faster. We are improving on that too. From the attacking point, we have to improve on our finishing. Although at this stage of the competition, it is not only the number of goals you score but you need to score the goals that can guarantee victory for you. The injection of Sunday Adetunji has already boosted our attack. There is no perfect team anywhere but we are improving every day. The players are responding to our tactical and technical training.
Enyimba have returned to their traditional ground in Aba. How important is this to your continental campaign?
Playing in Aba is of immense help to Enyimba. As you are aware, for more than three years, Enyimba played their home matches away from home in Port-Harcourt and Calabar. So it is a thing of joy that we have returned to Aba. You could see how much support we enjoyed against CARA Brazzaville in our last group match. The fans cheered us from the beginning to the end. They provoked action in the players. We kept pushing till the goal came. We were not getting that kind of support when we were playing away from home. So to answer your question, playing in Aba will help us in our continental aspiration.
Our desire is to win the title. However, we are going to take one step at a time. Now we have one final hurdle to cross before we reach the semi-final. We are not thinking of anything other than the final leg of our quarter-final match with Rayon Sports. It is when we cross that stage that we would start thinking of semi-final. This is not to say we would shy away from claiming our first Confederation Cup trophy.
Yes, they are doing well. They are giving us the necessary support. Every management has its own way of doing things. Two clubs are not the same in terms of support. Maybe some of the things I found in Kano Pillars may not be applicable in Enyimba.
The truth of the matter is that I am still a staff of Kano State ministry of Sports. I am the director of football development in the ministry. I have a degree in youth football development. So when I was working with Kano Pillars FC, Enyimba asked me to come over because it was obvious that the former technical adviser, Paul Aigboun would be shuttling between the team and Flying Eagles. They knew that the national assignment would take most of his time. So I was actually part of the team right from the beginning. The impression that I inherited the team from Aigbogun is therefore not correct. As a matter of fact, even before he left, I handled most of the matches.