Nwankwo Kanu Disappointed Over Enyimba’s Champions League Outing

The chairman of Enyimba and former Super Eagles star, Nwankwo Kanu has declared his disappointment over the club’s failure to qualify for this season’s CAF Champions League group stage.

He, however, backed the People’s Elephant to recover from the setback after they were eliminated by Al-Ahly Benghazi in the competition’s preliminary round last Sunday.

Al Ahly Benghazi of Libya, which won the first leg of the Preliminary round 4-3 on aggregate after snatching an extra-time winner in the first leg, held on to the advantage in the second leg.

Enyimba, the 2003 and 2004 CAF Champions League winners, struggled to penetrate their opponents’ staunch defence, as the game ended in a scoreless draw in Aba.

The club’s newly appointed chairman, Kanu, claimed that the People’s Elephant have bad luck when playing opponents from North Africa.

“It is very disappointing, but we have to go home with the positives,” Nwankwo Kanu said.

“We did create chances, it’s not like they (Al-Ahly Benghazi) did better than us, they had only one shot at goal. When you lose a game, of course, it is a bad one, but I wouldn’t say it’s a bad start, we want to be in the group stage of the CAF Champions League and do what we have to do.

“If we didn’t play well and we lost, that’s another problem. That’s the point I’ll say that it’s a bad start.”

Kanu added, “Sometimes these things happen to the best teams, the best players and that’s football.

“We have to move on. The boys have to put their heads up and then know that sometimes in life you fall and you stand up. We need to support and encourage them to do better next time.

“We are out of one competition, now we have the league (NPFL) and the Federation Cup, so, yes, we have to do more. We have to get more players to join the ones that we do have.”