BEVERLY HILLS, April 28, (THEWILL) – Since forging ahead of the competition in Group A of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) Confederations Cup, Nigeria’s representative to the competition, the Aba-based club, Enyimba International FC, has witnessed an unexpected slide that has seen them drop to third and be on the brink of early elimination from the competition.
They took the group by storm in the early stages of the ties and were 2-1 winners against Benghazi of Libya while they beat ES Setif of Algeria by the same scoreline while playing host in these previous group encounters but lost their second match away to South African side Orlando Pirates.
Two more losses away from home, 3-0 against Setif on the April 11 and by a lone goal 11 days later against Al Ahli has seen the People’s Elephant drop from their place of prominence in the group to be hanging by a thread in third place, one point behind second-placed Setif and three behind leaders, Pirates, whom they host next.
In the final round of Wednesday’s slew of continental ties, Enyimba will welcome the Pirates to the Enyimba Stadium in Aba to determine how the group will end. Nothing less than victory will be in their favour. So far, they have shown the grit required to take home matches but have come up short away from Aba. They will do well to keep that tradition going to stand the chance of progressing from the group.
The Aba-based side are yet to beat the South African side in any of their three previous fixtures. One draw and two losses give testament to the fact that Fatai Osho’s charges have their work cut out for them, if they are to continue flying the country’s flag high in the competition rather than suffer the ignominy of having dropped out of the group stages from a group where they were considered favourites to win.
The match at the Enyimba International Stadium in Aba is expected to kick off at 10pm local time on Wednesday and Angola’s Helder Martins de Carvalho has been appointed as the referee for the tie.
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
