Abd’Allah
After qualifying for the play-off stage of the CAF Champions League, Enyimba head coach Usman Abd’Allah don’t seem to have been carried away by the 5-0 scoreline of the return leg in Aba, warning that his team is still a long way from hitting the kind of form that saw them win the Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL) last season.
Enyimba cruised into the play-off stage of the CAF Champions League after defeating Rahimo of Burkina Faso 5-1 on aggregate at Aba over the weekend but Abd’Allah is refusing to rest on his laurels, writes NPFL.ng.
“I am very relieved because you’ve seen the boys were very prepared having worked very hard to make the win seem easy.
“I think we should continue this work that we’ve been doing because we can see the profit in it. So the boys have to be super, super fit; that is the only way we can execute our own plans.’ Abd’Allah said.
Enyimba had lost the 1st leg 1-0 at Ouagadougou but the People’s Elephant thrashed their Burkinabe opponents 5-0 in the 2nd leg with Reuben Bala and Stanley Dimgba both getting a brace each while Stanley Okorom’s scored his first ever Enyimba goal. However, the Enyimba coach went on to describe the win as ‘one of the most stressful matches’ of his coaching career.
“It’s one of the stressful matches I’ve had because having seen the match over there (in Ouagadougou), we were very lucky because it would have been tougher around here.
“So the good thing is we saw the team, we came back and worked on our weaknesses and finally you can see the job is done clean. We are happy.”
With Sunday’s win over Rahimo, the NPFL Championship have set up another tough clash with Al-Hilal of Sudan and Abd’Allah knows that Enyimba will have to be at its best to beat their opponents.
“I think we still have work to do, we still have a lot. We can’t be perfect. Every time we have to work. Hilal are a very good side but not unbeatable. If we are at our best, we will scale through.
“Of course playing at home in the 1st leg puts pressure on us to do well from the start but that is the beauty of the game. I am confident we can handle that”, Abdallah stressed during the week.
Enyimba will host Al-Hilal at the Enyimba Stadium in the weekend of September 13-15 before travelling to Sudan two weeks later for the return leg. The winner of the tie qualifies for the group stages.
