CAF Confederation Cup
VIDEO: Ahead of continental and NPFL opener, old sheriff returns to Remo Stars with new and improved tactics
BY KUNLE SOLAJA.
In what looks like a deft tactical move, Remo Stars, the 23rd Nigerian clubside to go into the elusive CAF Confederation Cup competition have reappointed their old coach who was sent to Portugal for retraining last season.
Coach Daniel Ogunmodede was at the weekend unveiled by the club’s CEO, Adedoyin Ogungbefun as the man to guide the team through the rough terrain of both the 2022/23 NPFL and the CAF Confederation Cup.
Ogunmodede is not new at the club. He guided Remo Stars from the lower rung of the Nigerian League ladder to the NPFL.
He was thereafter seconded to the Portuguese twin clubside to Remo Stars, CD Feirense, a 104 year old club also owned by Hon. Kunle Soname, the silent, but efficient owner of Remo Stars.
Ahead of the potentially challenging season in which Remo Stars will bring CAF interclub match to Ogun State for the first time since 1 November 1987 when Abiola Babes beat Tunisia’s Esperance 1-0 in Abeokuta, the Remo Stars Stadium is undergoing a face lift to be able to host international matches.
Lagos-based club, the now defunct Julius Berger in the early part of the century played their African Winners Cup duels in Abeokuta.
CAF inspector teams are being expected ahead of the opener of the Confederation Cup which enters its 20th edition in this new season.
Twenty two Nigerian clubs have featured since the competition debuted in 2004 following the merger of the previous Winners Cup and the CAF Cup.
Remo Stars are one of the two representatives for Nigeria as the second flagbearer will emerge from the ongoing Aiteo Cup.
Retuning coach, Ogunmodede has promised a sensational outing for Remo Stars as he intends to sustain the culture of the team.
Speaking after being unveiled for his ‘second missionary’ journey with the club, Ogunmodede remarked: “ the young players of the club now have a bigger platform to showcase themselves”.
He said this in apparent reference to the club being the second one to go continental after the over three decade lacuna since the era of Abiola Babes.
CAF Confederation Cup
CAF adjudges Morocco’s Youssef Mehri’s goal as the fastest in football history
Moroccan club, Renaissance de Berkane, beat their Algerian counterparts, CS Constantine, 4-0 in the first leg of the CAF Confederation Cup semi-finals at the weekend.
The game got off to a dream start for the Moroccan club as it took Youssef Mehri less than a minute to open the scoring in the big win against the Algerians.
Officially, the goal is recorded to have been scored after 13 seconds.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), CAF remarks: “Youssef Mehri goes straight into the history books. The RS Berkane striker scores the fastest goal ever scored in the CAF Cup.”
A deeper search by Sports Village Square indicates that a Nigerian player, Paul Onuachu, had previously scored a faster goal, but not in a CAF Cup duel.
The basketball player-like footballer scored his first international goal in a 1-0 defeat of Egypt on 26 March 2019.
The goal inflicted Nigeria’s first defeat on Egypt in 29 years. But more significant was the timing of the goal. Onuachu, within eight seconds of kick-off, undoubtedly entered the record books as the second fastest goal in international football records after that of Germany’s Lukas Podolsk, who scored after six seconds in a friendly against Ecuador in 2013.
Fans had hardly settled down at the Stephen Keshi Stadium in Asaba for the Nigeria versus Egypt match when Onuachu released a thunderous shot that turned out to be the match’s decider.
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The Renaissance Sportive de Berkane delegation will travel to Algeria this Friday to face CS Constantine in the CAF Cup. Tension may be building up for the potentially explosive confrontation that could have a build-up from last year’s fixtures of the Moroccan club and another Algerian outfit, USM Algiers, in the CAF Confederation Cup.
A Moroccan news outlet, Sport.le360, reports that a Tunisian airline will operate the direct flight between Oujda-Angad Airport, which is located about 12 kilometres north of Oujda and about 600 kilometres northeast of Casablanca, near the Algerian border and Constantine Mohamed Boudiaf International Airport.
Last year, political differences between Morocco and Algeria scuttled similar semi-final clashes between clubs of both countries.
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The Court of Arbitration for Sport on Wednesday ruled in favour of the Algerian football federation in a row over a map of Morocco on shirts worn by Renaissance Berkane in the 2024 CAF Confederation Cup.
Algerian club USM Alger were kicked out of last year’s competition after both legs of their semi-final against Berkane were cancelled because of a diplomatic dispute.
Neither match took place as USMA and the Algerian authorities objected to a map of Morocco on the Berkane shirts which included Western Sahara.
Algeria cut diplomatic ties with North African neighbours Morocco in 2021, partly over the Western Sahara issue.
The former Spanish colony is largely controlled by Morocco but claimed by the Algeria-backed Polisario Front, which seeks the territory’s independence.
The Confederation of African Football awarded Berkane a 3-0 victory for both legs of the semi-final.
CAF at the time responded to an appeal by the Algerian FA by ruling in favour of Berkane, saying the club had been wearing the same jerseys since the start of the tournament.
But the Algerian FA took the case to sport’s highest court in Switzerland, which determined that the shirts in question were “contrary to CAF regulations, as they display a territorial map that is of a political nature.”
“The image of a map of Morocco including Western Sahara on the shirts of RS Berkane depicts a message, a demonstration or propaganda of a political nature as it represents the assertion of a territorial dispute that is contested and still unresolved as of today,” CAS said in a statement.
“By the laws of the game of the International Football Association Board, it is prohibited to convey any content of a political nature on all equipment, including shirts.”
CAS added that the initial decision by CAF to “maintain the approval of the shirts is annulled”, but the court said that it would have no effect on the results of the tournament.
Egypt’s Zamalek beat Berkane on away goals in the final.
-AFP
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