Coach Eric Tinkler has given his insight into how Cape Town City survived hosts AS Otoho’s scare in Congo Brazzaville on Sunday.
Tinkler said this after CT City held AS Otoho to a goalless draw to secure CAF Champions League first round passage via 2-0 aggregate score.
OVERCOMING BUMPY PITCH
The former Bafana Bafana midfielder bemoaned the condition of the pitch, saying it affected his team’s style of play.
“The bad is the pitch because obviously it doesn’t suit our brand of football because as much as it is an artificial turf and it looks flat,” said Tinkler.
“It does not have a lot of fibre and the ball bounces so much so it terms of us being able to keep the ball on the ground, it was difficult.”
Tinkler said the next challenge for CT City was coping with AS Otoho’s long ball game.
“They played a lot of long balls. They tried to win all the second balls, so we knew that it was important to prevent that from happening; to stop the supply,” he added.
“Then secondly, we needed to deal with the first balls and we needed to be brave to deal with aerial challenges.”
SURVIVING PRESSURE
The former Orlando Pirates coach admitted that AS Otoho subjected CT City to immense pressure in the initial stages of the game.
“I thought that in the first 15 minutes, they put us under a lot of pressure, with that it took us a while to come into the game.
“But I thought defensively, we were very solid. I don’t think they really threatened us. They had one chance in the first and our goalkeeper did very well to make a save,” said the ex-Pirates coach.
Tinkler noted that his charges also had to overcome fatigue late in the game and he made substitutions.
“As the game went on, obviously fatigue comes because of the heat. We made substitutions and that brought more energy and I could see that they didn’t have more solutions and we started to hurt them on the counter. I am very proud of my boys they performed very well,” he said.
The hosts had an opportunity to score from the penalty spot but they fluffed that chance.
City had their moments most notably with Thabo Nodada reportedly grazing the cross bar with a ferocious strike.
CT City won the preliminary round home leg 2-0 the previous weekend.
The Citizens now date Petro de Luanda of Angola who beat Black Bulls of Mozambique 3-0 in Maputo then 2-1 in Luanda over the weekend.
The second-round matches are scheduled for the weekend of October 7 at home and October 14.
Wydad Casablanca of Morocco are the defending champions of the continental league title.
