Enyimba head coach, Finidi George , has said that they got their desired result in Dakar against Diambars FC of Senegal with the right strategy in the CAF Confederation Cup second round’s first leg tie.
The ex-international noted that he made necessary changes to the team’s formation at halftime when he noticed that their hosts are getting too much of the ball possession.
“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,” Finidi noted.
“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 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.”
Despite the slim 1-0 advantage ahead of the return leg tie billed for Aba on Sunday, Finidi stressed that his boys would approach the second leg tie with all seriousness and determination to seal another famous win.