Cape Town City take two-goal lead into Congolese capital

Cape Town — Cape Town City assistant coach Diego Parel is confident the Citizens will progress to the next round of the CAF Champions League as his team will not look to just defend their two-goal advantage in the preliminary round second leg clash against AS Otoho' at the Stade Alphonse Massamba-Debat in Brazzaville on Sunday (4.30pm).

City defeated the Congo Ligue 1 champions 2-0 last weekend at the Athlone Stadium, courtesy of goals from Taahir Goedeman and Marc van Heerden.

Tomorrow we resume our Continental Assignment 🏆

🆚 AS Otoho (2nd Leg)
🏆 #TotalEnergiesCAFCL
📆 Sunday 18 September
⏰ 16:30
📺 Not Televised
🏟 Alphonso Massembe Stadium pic.twitter.com/oSKtDex8vE

— Cape Town City FC (@CapeTownCityFC) September 17, 2022

"We are going after the away goal, that’s big. We are an offensive team and we’ve not gone anywhere to draw a game or hold on to results,” said Porel, who will be the man in charge on the bench due to head coach Eric Tinkler not being in possession of CAF A coaching license.

“We are going there to get something. We need to play our game and keep possession, and not make a physical match because they are big and strong."

In all fairness, City should have had the tie sewed up already after creating numerous chances in the first leg, and they will hope their wastefulness in front of goal does not come back to haunt them on Sunday.

The lads are off Congo Brazzaville! 🇨![CDATA[]]>🇬#iamCityFC pic.twitter.com/H7WpCHdGe1

— Cape Town City FC (@CapeTownCityFC) September 16, 2022

"We think we should have scored more than two goals.

“We had a lot of chances and in the final third we need to improve. But everything else was okay defensively. We were good and it was important to keep a clean sheet at home with the away goal rule.”

Tinkler had pointed out after the first leg clash the difficulties City had in preparing for the game against AS Otoho due to the lack of video footage available on the opposition, but having now come through the first leg the Citizens have a much better idea of what to expect in Central Africa.

“Here they relied on set pieces, free kicks, and thrown-ins, and we knew it was going to be like that. With the long ball over the top, we needed to keep pressure on their defence to avoid as many long balls as possible," Parel said.

“When they came here they were wasting time, from the first minute the keeper was going down drinking water.

“They cannot afford to waste time, now they will have to come out and try to get the goals. So that suits us and we are going to play some football.”

@ZaahierAdams