AfricaPress-Tanzania: DR Congo’s AS Vita head coach, Florent Ibenge has commended rivals Simba for their brave performance against his side’s 1-4 CAF Champions League defeat at Benjamin Mkapa Stadium in Dar es Salaam.
He said that he was not happy at all because he plans were to win, but they did not work out. “ I did not expect such frustrating away results”, he said.
He said the reasons behind their away defeat was due to the fact that Simba were stronger than his side and deserved to win points at home ground to advance to the quarterfinals of continental club tournament.
“They have the best players to win points,” “We tried our best to score but we failed, I wish Simba all best of good luck,” said Ibenge.
His Simba counterparts, Frenchman Didier Gomes has lauded his boys for a home deserved win that came from their ‘brave’ and ‘hard fighting’ spirit.
Simba and title holders Al Ahly of Egypt reached the 2020-21 Total CAF Champions League quarterfinals after guaranteeing top two spots of the Group A in the penultimate matchday.
As Simba outscored Vita Club 4-1 in Dar es Salaam, their groupmate Al Ahly of Egypt scored twice in the final ten minutes to comeback from two goals behind and hold their Sudanese hosts El Merriekeh to a 2-2 draw in Omdurman.
Simba have now raised up their tally to 13 points and secured the group’s top spot, while Al Ahly has 8 in second place before they lock horns in Cairo next Friday.
AS Vita follows with 4 pints while Merriekh has two with one match to go. “My players produced a 100 percent performance to win points and guarantee a spot into the quarterfinals,” ‘And that has shown up that Simba is among best teams in Africa by reaching that level of performance,” he said.
This is due to the fact that several other African giants, like Horoya of Guinea and the 2001 winners South Africa’s Kaizer Chiefs are still struggling to secure their berths let forget about 5-time African Champions Congolese TP Mazembe who have already been shown the door out of the competition.
Even MC Alger of Algeria and Egyptians Zamalek are still looking for tickets as Esperance of Tunisia have gone through with Senegalese Teungueth being out of the race.
The French tactician has called on Simba fans to celebrate the team’s latest achievement with that landmark record of being among fastest teams to qualify in the likes of South Africa’s Mamelodi Sundown.
“It will be interesting to play with our best team against Al Ahly in Cairo because we are now a big team in Africa and also we must prove away what we can do better even against Al Ahly when we meet again,” “What is more important now is that we have to enjoy our qualification and our progression,” “We have reached the quarter-finals, we finish in the first position in this group, so really we can be very proud of our players and we can thank them a lot because they have done a lot of work and today [Saturday] they listened to me very well.
“We needed to be very patient because we know very well that AS Vita will press us and let a lot of space, and we used this space to score and it was a very interesting match as we progressed.” Simba dominated their game against AS Vita in Dar es Salaam, with a “Man of the Match” performance from Luis Miquissone.
The Mozambican broke the deadlock for the hosts at the half hour mark, but for Zemanga Soze to restore parity a couple of minutes later. Zambian Clatous Chama made it 2-1 to the hosts just before halftime finishing a brilliant teamwork.
After the break, Simba continued to dominate, and added a third goal through Chama’s compatriot Larry Bwalya after 66 minutes.
Clatous Chama completed his brace and put the cherry over Simba’s cake six minutes from full time, as the Tanzanians celebrated topping the group in style.
Simba will now wind up their group matches with a clash against Al Ahly, whom they beat 1-0 at home earlier in the competition.
