"Al Hilal Benghazi had more information about us. They even had clips of our training sessions and they knew us," Rayon Sports head coach Zelfani Yamen admitted in his post-match briefing after the 1-1 draw against Al Hilal Benghazi in the CAF Confederation Cup second round first leg at Kigali Pele Stadium.
The Tunisian acknowledged that: "We played a good game but we missed so many chances.” He then talked of how his side lacked the "needed firepower” upfront as they "could have scored an avalanche of goals.”
Talk of conceding an ‘own goal’.
From the outside, it is hard to believe that those two paragraphs include quotes from the same person, and a professional coach at that. You would expect a coach to make all the necessary noise following a not-so-good result but admitting (publicly) that the opponent knows you more than you know them, should not be.
Zelfani admitted that the opponent had more information about Rayon Sports’ tactics and formation(s) but it didn’t stop his team from dominating the match and creating better scoring chances, which, in brief, renders his excuse superfluous.
Technically, the away team despite playing in Kigali, Rayon Sports could be assumed to have been handed an early advantage but they failed to make the most of it, which puts pressure on them to finish the job in the second leg on Saturday, at the same venue.
Zelfani, seeking to become the first man to lead the Rwandan side to the group stages of Africa’s second premier club competition, noted: "I am looking forward to the second leg and I am sure to qualify Rayon to the next stage.” Rayon fans will hope it’s not a case of easier said than done.
The ‘away’ team played more like the home side for larger parts of the game, creating more clear-cut chances, which led the coach to admit: "Our performance was good in the first leg but I am not happy with the result.”
"We lacked concentration and conceded a late goal."
Ideally, a coach would blame his players for the drop in concentration levels and conceding a late equalizer but Zelfani chose to fault Al Hilal Benghazi for having studied and spied on his team’s training sessions!
This should rank up there as one of the laziest excuses any coach would come up with for not getting the desired result. Studying an opponent in the build-up to the match is probably the oldest trick there is in football books.
And you would expect Rayon Sports coach to be in a position to know this better and mustn’t ‘complain’ about it, especially in public, for, doing so in front of the media, exhibits weakness not strength on his part.
What the Libyan side did, if indeed it’s true that they had clips of Rayon in training, is not illegal. Instead, the onus falls squarely on any club, or team, to protect their training sessions from the prying eyes of their opponents.
Zelfani and his team could have chosen to move their training camp away from Kigali where Al Hilal Benghazi was based, to a faraway location or simply train behind closed doors. Instead, they chose neither, hence leaving the coach to expose his team’s not-so-professional approach in the build-up to the game.
With the match played in front of an empty stadium due to the fact that Al Hilal Benghazi – the home team – didn’t bring their fans, the Blues took the lead through Congolese forward Heritier Luvumbu who converted from the penalty spot nine minutes into the second half.
Rayon, if they don’t finish the job on Saturday, will have no one but their misfiring forwards to blame. They had chances to take the tie away from their opponents who equalized with six minutes of normal time left courtesy of Ezzeddin El Maremi's header albeit against the run of play.
The silver lining for Rayon Sports though is that they will play the second leg in front of a full house, which will be a major boost for the players. Hopefully, they will win so that Zelfani will not be faced with another difficult situation of conjuring further excuses for his team’s shortcomings. Good luck!