Plateau United crash out of CAF Champions League

Plateau United yesterday dashed Nigeria’s hope of progressing in the CAF Champions League as the team was knocked out of the competition despite recording a 1-0 win against Tunisian giants Etoile du Sahel. Tosin Omoyele scored Plateau United’s only goal but this was not sufficient to see the team progressing to the next stage.
In the encounter held at the Sani Abacha Stadium in Kano, the reigning Nigeria Professional Football League champions needed two goals to edge out their visitors and progress to the lucrative group stage of the championship, but as they could only score one, they had to bow out on 4-3 goals aggregate having loss 2-4 in the first leg played in Tunisia.
Ever since Enyimba International of Aba won the CAF Champions League back-to-back in 2003 and 2004, beating Ismaily of Egypt and Tunisia’s Étoile du Sahel in the fi nals respectively, no other Nigerian club sides had been able to make it to the fi nal stage of the completion till date. The Kennedy Boboye’s wards actually dominated the 90 minutes the encounter lasted. Theypiled pressure on the Tunisians right from the blast of the whistle and nearly took the lead in the 11th minute but Peter Eneji’s effort came off the crossbar.
Etoile du Sahel struggled to keep up with the pace of the game as they were obviously affected by the hot Kano sun and used every opportunity to gulp water into their system. The breakthrough came for the hosts in the 25th minute when forward Omoyele scored the opening goal, but their failure to score the decisive second goal in the second half was what contributed to their exit from the competition. And just like MFM FC who were dumped out by MC Alger on Saturday, Plateau United will now wait to see who they will be facing in the second-tier CAF Confederation playoff s.