Cape Town- Cape Town City coach Eric Tinkler has rued their missed opportunity to get a stranglehold on their CAF Champions League preliminary round tie against AS Otôho of Congo who went down 2-0 in the first leg at Athlone Stadium on Saturday afternoon.
City had so many scoring chances that it was possible if they had exploited their good fortune they could have ended the tie as a contest ahead of next Sunday’s second leg clash at the Stade Alphonse Massamba-Debat in Brazzaville. The aggregate winner will advance to the next round in October.
Tinkler, who was disqualified from sitting on the team bench, had a 'grandstand' view of proceedings and afterwards, he felt the team should have come away with a bigger win to bolster their chances of reaching the second round.
“For me it was a disappointing factor, knowing that you (CT City) going there now with a 2-0 lead," said Tinkler, who also raised fears about the playing conditions in Brazzaville.
"I would have preferred to have gone there with a little bit more because we’ve already seen the type of pitch that we’re going to be playing on. We are going to have to be extremely positive and not go to look to be defensive. We should rather look to go there and get that away goal because it still obviously exists in this competition.”
Tinkler said not much information was available on their Congolese opposition but he one could glean what they had to offer after viewing limited footage of a domestic game in Brazzaville.
“Coming into the game, in terms of our analysis of them was always going to be very, very difficult," said Tinkler. "The only real footage we managed to get of them was a cup game that they played a couple of weeks ago
“Since there was nothing else, we normally work with InStat [a sports performance analysis company], but unfortunately, there was nothing on InStat.
"Our analyst managed to search YouTube and came across that match. It gave us a sense of their style in terms of how they played, especially on that pitch, in Brazzaville. A played a lot of long balls, second balls, you could see that they were a threat aerially.
“However, there was always that uncertainty in terms of whether they still be playing that way. We also wondered about their line-up. We knew the coach that was there parted ways and a new coach was appointed. We weren’t 100% sure exactly what they were going to come with.
“We managed to get some info in terms of their players and positions. This is how it works in CAF and you get the team sheets at the last minute, just before kick-off.
“We could see that there was the possibility of them changing their formation to a back three, which ended up being correct. We assessed it correctly.
"When they played with the back five, they tried to frustrate us in that first half by slowing the game down. I think their goalkeeper many times took way longer than six seconds to release the ball. Whenever the ball went out, they took their time.
“You could see the way they set themselves up, they came here to try and get a 0-0- draw, or perhaps steal something on the counter.
"Even though they played in that low block, we still managed to penetrate. We created chances and we should have scored, we should have scored at least two or three in the first few minutes.
“It was a bit frustrating, and you could see the players at halftime being a little bit frustrated about that.
"I felt that [Fidèle] Ambina needed to play a little bit higher. Because they were playing a 5-4-1 formation, and we had the three at the back and there wasn’t that anecessary.
“We wanted him to step in a little bit higher.
"In the second half, we wanted fullbacks to get a little bit higher and wider. With that perseverance, we eventually got the first and then we got the second. We should have got a third that I don’t know why it was disallowed, but it is what it is.
“Those goals started opening them up and that started changing the way they play They went back from a five to a four. I think there was a little bit of fatigue on our side towards the end. They started putting those long balls and picking up the second balls, and then they became a little bit more of a threat, especially on the corners and the free kicks.
“At times, perhaps twice in the match, we were scrambling a little bit, and they could have come away with something 2-1, which would have been disappointing.
"For me, again, it was the same old problem of not taking our chances and making sure that we punish teams. We needed to go get the third (goal) and we needed to go get the fourth but we didn’t do that."
City qualified have qualified for the competition after finishing DStv Premiership runners-up last season. If they survive this preliminary round, they will be joined by Mamelodi Sundowns in the next round at the start of October.
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