CAFCup:Mix fortunes for Nigerian Teams as Bayelsa United beat CS Sfaxien of Tunisia 1-0 in Yenagoa

By Our Sports Desk

One of Nigeria’s representative in this season’s CAF Confederations Cup, Bayelsa United have defeated CS Sfaxien of Tunisia by a lone goal at the Samson Siasia Sports Complex in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, South-South Nigeria.

The keenly contested match recorded several goal bound opportunities missed by both teams. The Bayelsa United striker, Victory Beniangba however gave the Yenagoa-based team the lead on the 55 minute of the match.

Bayelsa Governor, Douye Diri and member of the Senate Committee on Sports, Senator Moses Cleopas watched the first leg of the Confederation Cup second preliminary match.

The return fixture will take place on October 23 in the city of Tunis, the capital of Tunisia.

Meanwhile,Enyimba head coach Finidi George has hailed his side’s away win against Senegalese club Dimbars FC in the first leg of their CAF Confederation Cup First Round tie on Saturday.

The Peoples Elephant who are the other Nigerian team at the CAF Confederation Cup defeated their hosts 1-0 with Super-sub Cyril Olisema stepped up to take the ensuing penalty kick which he smartly fired past goalkeeper Francois Djiba. for the winning goal from the spot three minutes from time..

Finidi , who was gracious in victory, expressed his admiration for the Diambars team.

“Personally I am happy that we played this way. We knew this team (Diambars) is a very good team technically, 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,” the gaffer told the club’s website.

 “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.”

Finidi added: “We knew we cannot match them because I think they’ve started their league already, they’ve played couple of games, real competitive games and they have that match rhythm 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 sixty minutes and we made some changes and brought in some fresh legs which really helped to give us that penalty”.

In the top tier CAF Champions League Rivers United were held to a 1-1 draw by Sudanese club Al Hilal in their CAF Champions League first round, first leg tie at the Adokiye Amiesimaka Stadium, Port Harcourt on Sunday night..

The hosts dominated play but were let down by their poor marksmanship in front of goal. Yasil Mohamed gave Al Hilal the lead eight minutes before the break.but Rivers United fought their way back and equalised 22 minutes from time when Mohamed Saeed scored an own goal.