Former TP Mazembe midfielder Daniel Nii Adjei has weighed in on the current performance of the club in this season’s CAF Champions League.
The club based in the Congolese city of Lubumbashi are having a rough patch this term, lying bottom of Group A with two points from five continental games – five points behind third place Tanzania’s Young Africans with Algeria’s MC Alger in second on 8 points and Sudan’s Al Hilal atop the table with 10 points. The Ravens were prematurely eliminated from contention for a top-2 spot and a place in the quarterfinals.
Nii Adjei, who won a lot of laurels with the African giants, spoke exclusively to Ghana based Radio Gold.
“I think the trend that they were doing, I think it got changed along the way when the man [owner Moise Katumbi] was not around and the one who was there stopped bringing players from outside to blend with the locals,” Daniel Nii Adjei told Radio Gold Sports.
“I am sure they are now starting to go on that trend again and you know in football, building a team is not a one day thing. When we went there in 2013, I think their last Champions League was in 2009 or so before we won another in 2015 so it is not easy to build a team twice in African competition so I think they are now doing rebuilding to get to that level so it won’t be easy."
“It is not a one day journey and I know things will be good for them in the coming years and so they should keep trying and I know things will be fine for them. The man [Moise Katumbi] is back and I know he is going to work things out for the team,” Daniel Nii Adjei told Radio Gold Sports.
Nii Adjei, now 36-years-old, joined TP Mazembe after a glittering career with Ghana based Kumasi Asante Kotoko where he won three league titles and one FA Cup over five seasons.
His five-season journey with TP Mazembe from 2012 came with four DR Congo league titles, three Super Cups plus a CAF Champions League trophy in 2015. He won two consecutive CAF Confederation Cups with the club in 2016 and 2017 as well as the CAF Super Cup in 2016.
Following his contract expiration with Mazembe, Adjei signed for Morocco giants Wydad Casablanca in 2017 where he won another CAF Super Cup with them a year later. He re-joined Kotoko in 2018 before later stints with King Faisal and Elmina Sharks.
Nii Adjei has transitioned from playing into coaching and is the current assistant coach of Ghana Premier League club Heart of Lions under his former coach at Kotoko, Bashir Hayford.
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