Algerian side MO Bejaia are under intense pressure to kick AshantiGold out of the CAF Champions League, club captain Zahir Zerdab has admitted.
Accodring to the Tunisian international striker, the club’s recent streak of poor results has made them jittery but eager to win back home fans with a good win which will knock out the Miners.
Ashanti Gold will be playing Bejaia in a return encounter after they won the first by a slim margin, a goal to nil. Left back, Tijani Joshua scored the only goal in that encounter on the 14th of February.
Bejaia are yet to pick a win in their last five matches, scoring just a goal and conceded five goals. And this, Zerdab confirms in an interview with Kumasi-based BOSS FM, is affecting team psychology.
He said: “Our morale is not very very well because we lost yesterday, we lost three days ago and we lost last week to Ashanti Gold so we have to stop the dry morale.”
“The pressure is big because our fans are writing off the qualification of our teams, so there is a lot of pressure but we have to offer the qualification to our fans.”
He added that their main objective this year is the Champions League, and it will be a huge blow if they are to be knocked out at this early stage.
“The one objective of this year is the championship, so we have to win this second part against AshantiGold.
“Maybe I think against Ashanti Gold, there are not a lot of solutions. We have to score two or three goals. We will basically make it to the next stage. I know and my team knows that it will be very very difficult but the objective is to go to the next stage,” he explained.
Zerdab also admitted that everything is possible in football and could get themselves surprised by the Obuasi lads.
“All is possible, in football all is possible. Your team [Ashanti Gold] can get one or maybe two goals in Algeria, no problem, but we can eliminate them.
“But we have to begin the game quickly and if we can score in the first 10 minutes, it will be very good for us. If AshantiGold score one goal, it will be very difficult for us to score three goals.
“The objective is to score quickly and don’t concede a goal from your team. I think if we score two goals is good but if we score three it will be perfect.”
The MO Bejaia-AshantiGold CAF Champions League preliminary round return clash is set to kick off at 17:00 GMT.
