Former Asante Kotoko player and Chief Executive Officer Samuel Opoku Nti has
warned the side to beware of unwarranted delay tactics mostly deployed by North
African countries in football matches as the team prepares to host Tunisia’s
Etoile Sportive Sahel in the first leg of their Champions League preliminary
qualifier on Sunday.
Asante Kotoko will battle it out against Etoile on Sunday in the last round
of the preliminary qualifiers at the Baba Yara sports stadium on Sunday, and
Samuel Opoku Nti, a legend of the Kumasi based club has warned his former club
to guide against playing to suit any delay tactics to be deployed by the north
African giants.
“When they come here the only thing they’ll do is to delay the game,
that’s all”, Opoku Nti predicted ahead of the match on Sunday, speaking to
Fox FM. “They’ll sit back and use maybe counter, putting only one person
affront, then delay the game but if we don’t take care their style of delaying
will cause us”, he feared.
Meanwhile, the 1983 Champions League winner with Kotoko urged the team to
resort to speed game and not hold the ball at the back but rather push them
Tunisian side with the ball with a pressing style of play to enable Kotoko to
score as many goals as possible.
“The time they are delaying we have to fast the ball, sometimes if you
don’t take care you will end up possessing the ball at the back, we need goals,
they don’t need goals, they have the hope that they’ll play at home (in the
second leg) so we have to give them the pressure even though they’ll
delay”, he advised.
The match has been scheduled for Sunday, 15th September, 2019 at 3:00pm at
the Baba Yara sports stadium, and the full contingent of Etoile Sportive du
Sahel are expected in Ghana by Friday.
