Photo Courtesy CAF Media.
Al Hilal head coach Florent Ibenge has revealed his players and the technical bench were left sad and disappointment following their 1-0 Caf Champions League defeat against Young Africans (Yanga SC) at home on Sunday.
The Tanzanian Premier League champions kept alive their qualification hopes to the knock out stages after the ever-impressive Stephane Aziz Ki scored a beautifully taken goal at the Stade de la Capitale in Nouakchott, Mauritania.
Heading into the matchday five fixture, Yanga were seeking revenge against a side that had defeated them 2-0 in their opening Group A fixture. After the Aziz Ki goal, Yanga defended well to earn revenge and the vital points in the group.
“We lost our first game in this competition, we are really sad and disappointed (losing our first game), our intentions was to end the group campaign without losing, we strongly wanted to win the game against Yanga,” Ibenge told Pan-Africa Football.
“But that is football, today (Sunday) we tried, we did everything to win the game, but we lost concentration in the beginning of the game, but again unfortunately we didn’t have the possibility to score, we created a lot of possibilities but we didn’t score, we are really sad.
“We are going to do our the best to win or draw against TP Mazembe away not to change our mentality, we are going to Mazembe to try win the game, we want to go to Lubumbashi and do our best, I am confident that we can finish the group matches on a high.”
The win enabled Yanga to sit third in the group with seven points, just one behind second-placed MC Algers, who have eight points, and three behind the group leaders, Al Hilal, who are sitting comfortably on 10 points and had already qualified with two matches to spare.
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