Enyimba International’s Head coach, Usman Abd’Allah does not seem to have been carried away by the team’s progression to the CAF Champions League first round.
The tactician warned that his team is still a long way from hitting the kind of form that saw them win the Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL) last season.
Enyimba cruised into the play-off stage of the CAF Champions League after defeating Rahimo of Burkina Faso 5-1 on aggregate at Aba over the weekend but Abd’Allah is refusing to rest on his laurels, writes NPFL.ng.
“I am very relieved because you’ve seen the boys were very prepared having worked very hard to make the win seem easy,” Abd’Allah told newsmen.
“I think we should continue this work that we’ve been doing because we can see the profit in it. So the boys have to be super, super fit; that is the only way we can execute our own plans”, he said.
With a win over Rahimo, the Nigerian giants have set up another tough clash with Al-Hilal of Sudan and Abd’Allah knows that Enyimba will have to be at its best to beat their opponents.
“I think we still have work to do, we still have a lot. We can’t be perfect. Every time we have to work. Hilal are a very good side but not unbeatable. If we are at our best, we will scale through.
“Of course playing at home in the 1st leg puts pressure on us to do well from the start but that is the beauty of the game. I am confident we can handle that,” he added.
Enyimba will host Al-Hilal at the Enyimba Stadium in the weekend of September 13-15 before travelling to Sudan two weeks later for the return leg. The winner of the tie qualifies for the group stages.