PLAYERS and officials of Al Hilal Football Club of Sudan yesterday erupted in wild celebration after their team’s hard-fought 2-2 with 2003 and 2004 African champion, Enyimba of Aba, inside the Enyimba stadium.

They had many reasons to be happy because it is not often that teams come to Aba and get a good result, and, the draw keeps them in good stead in the CAF Champions League Group A, which also houses Cotton Sport of Cameroun and Raja Casablanca of Morocco.

The Camerounians held Raja Casablanca to a goalless draw in Morocco at the weekend, meaning that Enyimba’s draw with AL Hilal puts all four teams on a point each. Actually, Al Hilal would have been topping the group now had the players made good use of some of the clear chances they created in the game at the half-filled Enyimba International Stadium.

Enyimba started the game on a blistering pace, with its attackers bombarding the Sudanese goal area in search of early goal. But that proved costly as the well-drilled Al Hilal side withstood the attack and launched series of raids on the Aba team through a devastating counter-attacking formation that tasked the Aba defenders all day long.

One of such counter-attacking moves gifted the Sudanese team the lead half way into the first stanza. Enyimba attackers poured forward in search of goal and in one of such forays, they lost possession, allowing AL Hilal to break forward, with Edward Sadomba at the end of the blistering attack.

His pace took him past Enyimba’s Nnaemeka Anyanwu and Ekene Ivuorie and, still with so much to do, he kept a cool head to send a powerful low drive past a stranded Chijioke Ejiogu. Stunned by the goal, Enyimba increased the urgency in its game, but the best chance it got in the first half was Peter Onoja’s drive, which AL Hilal’s goalkeeper, Abdel, smothered to safety.

The Sudanese team almost got a second goal shortly before the end of the first half, but Sadomba was quickly closed down before he could do any further damage. On resumption of the second half, a more co-ordinated Enyimba continued its search for the equaliser with old warhorse, David Tyavkase, Uche Kalu and Josiah Maduabuchi putting much pressure on the visitors’ defence.

That pressure paid off in the 50^th minute through Valentine Nwabili, whose speculative drive from about 30 yards beat a sorry goalkeeper Abdel. Uche Kalu threw the Aba stadium into ecstasy with a headed goal in the 60^th minute. But then the Sudanese team was undaunted.

Al Hilal went back to level terms in the 77^th minute through that man, Sadomba. But the credit for the equaliser must go to Khalifa Hamed, whose good work on the right all but set up the chance on a plate for the cold blooded finisher to side foot his shot into the post.

 -Guardian

Posted by admin on Jul 17 2011. Filed under Headlines, Soccer, Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry