Caf Confederation Cup: Enyimba defeat Diambars to progress

Enyimba are through to the Caf Confederation Cup play-off round after defeating Diambars FC 3-0 in the second round, second leg encounter.

Goals from Tosin Omoyele, Victor Mbaoma and Samuel propelled the People’s Elephant past the Senegalese side at the Enyimba International Stadium, Aba.

The Nigeria Professional Football League giants had secured a 1-0 away win courtesy of Cyril Olisema’s 86th-minute penalty at the Stade Lat-Dior, Thies.

Buoyed by that result, Enyimba started the game on a bright note, and it took them less than a minute to take the lead through Omoyele.

Although the hosts dominated ball possession, they were unable to get more goals as they were wasteful in front of goals.

Nevertheless, they doubled their advantage on the half hour mark through Mbaoma who profited from the visitors’ shambolic defending.

Nothing changed in the second half as the visitors laboured in vain to assert their authority in the keenly contested encounter.

Three minutes from full time, Diambars got reduced to 10 men as Bacary Sane was given the marching orders for dangerous play.

Profiting from that numerical advantage, Finidi George’s men had time to make it three goals through Kalu in the 90th minute.

With this, Enyimba are through having won 4-0 on aggregate and will now await their next opponents in the coming days.

Following his team’s first leg triumph, coach George explained how his men scaled Diambars’ hurdles, notwithstanding their ability to play competitive matches.

“Personally, I am happy that we played this way. We knew this team [Diambars] are a very good team technically,” he told Enyimba website.

“They pass the ball very well but at the same time we kept our composure, we kept our formation and then tried to hold them so that they cannot score an easy goal.

“In the second half we still played that way trying to contain them and the tempo dropped and that helped us as well to pass the ball a little bit more in the middle and gave us that opportunity with the few changes we made.”

“We knew we cannot match them because I think they’ve started their league already, they’ve played a couple of games, really competitive games and they have that match rhythm,” he continued.

“So, we knew if we could play to our formation, not give them that space, which I think they had in the first twenty or twenty-five minutes that they dominate.

“After that, the tempo dropped a little bit and that permitted us to play our football a little bit.

“We saw that in the second half most players were tired after 60 minutes and we made some changes and brought in some fresh legs which really helped to give us that penalty.”