As Eritrean ref disallows ‘valid’ goal

Confed Cup

Yesterday
APR 0-0  El Hadoud

APR coach Rene Feller was left rueing the scoring chances his strikers wasted in the 0-0 draw with Egypt’s Haras El Hadoud in the first leg of Caf Confederations Cup second round played yesterday at Nyamirambo stadium.

The seemingly agitated Dutchman slated his team, particularly the strikers for not putting to better use all the opportunities they created.

The home side were the better team for long spells and even had a seemingly genuine goal disallowed by Eritrean referee Ghebremichael Luelseghed for offside.

Not knowing that his goal had been chocked off; Congolese striker Ndjoli Bokungu was even yellow carded for removing his shirt in celebration much to the disappointment of the partisan crowd.

El Hadoud were the first to have the ball in the back of the net but it was cancelled for offside before APR’s was also ruled out for a similar offence though it seemed as if only the assistant referee saw it that way since it was scored on a quick count attack.

Bokungu was the guilty party throughout; he even missed the best chance of the match with only Maturin Kameni in Hadoud goal to beat. He shot lamely at the keeper after doing all the good work to break through El Hadoud defence.

After the match, a disappointed Feller said, "We played better than Egypt (referring to El Hadoud), created more scoring chances but the strikers couldn’t score.”

"They’re not a very good side, they’re only good in the air because of their sizes but on the balance of today’s game, I see some possibilities for us in Cairo,” noted the Dutchman.

Feller was booed by some fans for replacing midfielder Fuadi Ndayisenga with Hegman Ngoma instead of a seemingly struggling Jean Baptiste Mugiraneza.

His substitution didn’t go down well with his captain Mbuyu Twite, who even tried to stop the Burundian international from leaving the field but was calmed by his team mates.

But Feller defended his decision and also Mbuyu’s action, which he called being ‘emotional’, "What he did is part of the game and I don’t find anything wrong with it. As captain, he was only being emotional.”

About the disallowed goal, he said, "To me it was 100 percent a good goal, unfortunately the referee didn’t see it that way.”

APR travel to Cairo in two weeks time for the second leg with the tie evenly balanced at 0-0.

Ends