Football: African club competitions-Qualifying: a tall order |17 February 2007
Both defending League champions Anse Réunion and reigning Land Marine Cup winners St Michel started their 2007 African campaigns against regional opponents, but failed miserably in their bid to progress to the next stage of the two competitions, especially after their quite good first leg results.
Internal bickering
Anse Réunion had brought home a goalless draw from the away fixture played at the Mahamasina stadium in Madagascar, but its seems that internal bickering took the players’ focus off the return match, helping AS Adema to a 3-0 win at Stad Linite.
Coach Vojo Gardasevic was deprived of the services of star striker Yelvanny Rose, who was not registered by the team’s management for the competition, as well as the Malagasy trio – defender Simplice, midfielder Jocelyn and striker Firinga Fahidany – who stayed in Madagascar.
Speaking to Sports Nation after the home defeat, coach Vojo said that “if I had my full team, I am sure we would have beaten AS Adema and progress to the second round of the competition. I’m disappointed with the three Malagasies. They failed Anse Réunion and Seychelles football.”
Earlier this week, Simplice contacted Sports Nation by phone from Madagascar, saying they could not arrive in Seychelles on time for the match because they received their air tickets late.
Not only the Malagasy players failed Anse Réunion, the team’s management, according to Vojo, should also take some of the blame for the early exit.
“Some members of the team management aren’t serious. They forgot to register Yelvanny Rose for the African competitions. This is unacceptable at this level as I wanted to surprise AS Adema by fielding him (Yelvanny), who is back from injury, for the return match,” noted Vojo.
Anse Réunion’s only previous appearance in an African club competition was in the old African Cup Winners’ Cup in 1996. After walking over Masvingo of Zimbabwe in the preliminary round, they met Kenya Pipeline of Kenya, losing the away leg 1-2 before winning the return match 2-1.
Malagasy Amisy Voavy scored in both ties and compatriot Jocelyn netted the second goal of the return match. With the score tied at 3-3 and both teams having netted one away goal, the winners were decided on a penalty shoot-out. Anse Réunion lost 8-9.
St Michel
St Michel’s 2-1 home win, with goals from Malagasy Leonni Nastina (penalty) and Seychelles left winger Alex Nibourette, was always going to be tough to defend in the return leg as a 1-0 away defeat would mean automatic qualification for St Pauloise FC.
This is exactly what happened and St Michel bowed out at the first hurdle for only the third time in exactly 10 years. The first time was in 1997, their debut year in Africa, losing 1-5 (1-2 at home and 0-3 in Madagascar) to BFV in the preliminary round of the African Champions League.
The following year (1998), they won 1-0 at home on a Gerald Rosette goal, but lost 1-8 away to Ethiopia’s Coffee FC in the preliminary round of the African Champions League.
Ralph ‘Tiapout’ Jean-Louis netted St Michel’s away goal against Coffee FC and now sitting in the coach’s hot seat, he has not been able to guide his team to the next round.
St Michel were without four starters – Lorenzo Mathiot, Neddy Rose, Henny Dufresne and Jeffrey Brutus – as they were all injured for the return leg match in Reunion.
Coach Jean-Louis admitted that “bowing out at the first hurdle is not what we were hoping for. But with the squad I had at my disposal, I’m quite happy with the team’s performance in Reunion.”
He noted that “although St Michel are quite experienced in African club football, we came up against a good St Pauloise FC team. I believe the difference is in the preparation.
At this time of the year, most of the local teams haven’t started preparing for the new season and it’s hard to find test matches. We’ve also eliminated more experienced teams in the past, but it’s unfortunate that we have bowed out of the competition to an African debutante. It’s part of the game. I hope the players have gathered enough experience for
the future and I’m sure that with a full squad we can give a much better showing.”
Back in Africa after a two-year absence, St Michel have reached the second round of an African club competition three times. The first time was in the African Champions League 2001, winning 3-1 (0-0 away and 3-1 at home) against AS Fortior of Madagascar in the preliminary round; winning on the away goal rule after a 4-4 draw (2-3 away loss and 2-1 home win) against AS Marsouins of Reunion in the first round and losing 0-6
(0-5 away loss and 0-1 home loss) against Al-Ahly of Egypt in the second round.
In the African Cup Winners’ Cup 2002, St Michel eliminated Shabanie Mines of Zimbabwe 3-1 (0-1 away loss and 3-0 home win thanks to a Philip Zialor hat-trick) in the first round before losing 1-3 (0-1away and 1-2 at home) to AS Vita of DR Congo in the second round.
The following year (2003), the team played in the Caf Cup and they eliminated DSA of Madagascar 1-0 (0-0 home draw and 1-0 away win) in the first round and bowed out to Zambia’s Green Buffaloes on a 1-7 score (0-5 away loss and 1-2 home loss) in the second round.
The only other Seychelles club to have reached the second round are Red Star and it was in the African Cup Winners Cup 1997. They walked over both Madagascar’s Club Namakia and Mozambique’s Maxaquene in the preliminary and first rounds before losing 0-5 (0-2 and 0-3) to Ste Louisienne of Reunion in the second round.
Desperate to go past the first hurdle...
Local teams must be desperate to go past the first hurdle after failing to do so for a second consecutive year.
Last year (in 2006), La Passe lost 0-2 (0-0 at home and 0-2 away) to Ferroviaro Maputo of Mozambique in the preliminary round of the African Champions League and SMB were eliminated on a 0-3 score (0-2 home loss and 0-1 away loss) to Township Rollers of Botswana in the African Confederation Cup.
Commenting on the early elimination of local clubs over the past two years, Congolese national team coach Raoul Shungu reiterated Jean-Louis’ views of a lack of sparring partners early in the season.
“As long as the season ends in November, local clubs will always find it difficult to match their opponents in African club competitions. The best thing is for the league competition to span from one year to another, meaning that competition will still be on in December and January but with players having a break during the festive season. As it is right now, only the two teams involved in African club competitions start training early and they don’t get any sparring partner before going into the competition. Being eliminated at the first hurdle isn’t good for Seychelles football as the players and teams don’t gather any experience.
You have to play a lot of matches to gather experience.”
G. G.