BY PETER KANJERE, PANA

Botswana’s Orapa United coach Gadimang Tiiso has downplayed that his team is yet to score in the CAF Confederation Cup group stage going into their penultimate Group C encounter against USM Alger on Sunday.

In a pre-match press conference on Saturday, Tiiso said the seven goals they have conceded without scoring in four games do not reveal the whole story about Orapa’s debut showing in the competition.

“If you look at our performance from the first game, the team is doing well,” he said.  “We lost but the performance was very good. The group is still open; we can qualify. We must take one game at a time going into the next game. We need to focus more and approach it with a winning mentality that even though we are at the bottom of the group, we also want to progress to the quarterfinals.”

The coach for the Botswana team insisted that they learned lessons from their 6-0 loss to the Algerians in the first leg and were ready to improve their performance on Sunday.

“This is a completely different game and a completely different approach. We also drew lessons which we can’t reveal. We have nothing to lose in this game tomorrow. We will still approach it with a winning mentality,” Tiiso added.

Going into Sunday’s game at Obed Itani Chilume Stadium in Francistown, Orapa anchor Group C with two points. The debutants lie a distant six points behind leaders USM Alger and three behind second and third positioned ASEC Mimosas and ASC Jaraaf from Ivory Coast and Senegal.

Orapa lost 6-0 to USM Alger, drew 0-0 with ASEC, chalked a similar result against ASC Jaraaf at home in Botswana then lost 1-0 to the Senegalese opponents in Dakar. Orapa will wind up their Group C assignments by facing ASEC Mimosas next Sunday.

-PANA

Nigeria’s Enyimba FC risks sanctions from the Confederation of African Football, CAF, if Al-Masry SC of Egypt successfully presses a case against the Nigerian side.

Trending on WhatsApp group of African sports stakeholders is a statement made by a board member of Al-Masry, Mohammed Mousa, whose team has a Confederation fixture with Enyimba on Sunday.

Mohamed Mousa, a member of the board of directors of the Port Said club and head of mission of the club’s first football team, reportedly spoke of the difficulties encountered by his team during their trip to Nigeria.

He explained that Al-Masry decided to file a complaint against those responsible for Enyimba to the Confederation of African Football (CAF).

Mousa said in press statements: “We encountered great difficulties upon our arrival in Nigeria and received a very poor welcome from Enyimba officials.”

He continued: “We took a domestic flight from Abuja to Uyo, and the management of the Nigerian club ignored our reception, and we received a big shock, with the lack of buses to transport us to the residence, which made us wait for a long time inside the airport until buses were provided to transport us.”

 He added: “I would like to thank Ms. Samah Badawi, Deputy Ambassador of Egypt to Nigeria, who was keen to wait with the mission until all travel procedures from Abuja to Uyo were completed and who worked to overcome all obstacles that we faced. »

He continued: “The management of Enyimba has decided without justification to cancel the reservation of our training ground and we have not found an explanation for all the obstacles we are facing from the Nigerian side, before the next match. »

He concluded: “We have decided to file a complaint against the Nigerian at CAF and we will work to remove all obstacles facing the team before the next match. »

Similar situations were recorded in MatchDays 3 and 4 of the Africa Cup of Nations qualifying ties of Nigeria and Libya leading to extreme actions by the Libyans who were later sanctioned with match forfeiture.

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The Confederation of African Football, CAF has announced Brown Ideye as the player that will attend the CAF Confederation Cup pre-match conference on Saturday.

Ideye, an Africa Cup of Nations winner with Super Eagles in 2013 returned to Nigeria after a professional career in Europe and Asia.

He was an instant hit when he came as a substitute in Enyimba’s Confederation Cup 4-1 defeat of Mozambique’s Associação Black Bullsin a MatchDay 4 match.

Ideye will be accompanied to the press conference by the coach, Stanley Eguma.

The press conference holds at the Godswill Akpabio Stadium at 12.30 noon, thirty minutes after the visiting Egyptian side, Al Masry would have taken their turn. The player that will feature for Al Masry is a midfielder, Hassan Ali.

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