The dice is cast, the day and hour is almost upon us.

By:. Chuks Ogbu

It’s the second leg CAF Confederations Cup playoff round.

The two biggest and arguably most in form football clubs in Nigeria are up on each others neck and are ready to ride on each other back on their way to the group stages of the CAF Confederations Cup .

The first leg of the encounter was Played on Sunday the 14th of February, a day globally known as a day of love, but in that fixture no such thing as love was witnessed, because it was a Titanic spectacle, And the People’s Elephants were able to get a slim 1-0 win in a Match that was disrupted by the elements of nature.

But despite the heavy rain that made the match officials from Algeria to suspend the game in the 8th around the 30 minutes after restart it never looked like it rained, simply because of the quality of the drainage system at the stadium.

At the end of the game, Enyimba were able to get the only goal of the game at the 59th minutes of the encounter after Anayo Iwuala who is arguably the most in form winger in Nigeria was able to dazzle his way into the Rivers United area before setting up Cyril Olisema, who calmly blasted home for the lone goal of the match.

SOME FACTS ABOUT THE FIXTURE

The venue that will host the encounter, the Adokiye Amiesimaka stadium have been Enyimba’s Home Ground in Continental fixtures more than it has been for Rivers United, (6 Continental matches for Enyimba, one Continental game for Rivers United). Infact both teams have played equal amount of home games at the venue Rivers United playing six home competitive games there, winning all while Enyimba playing six as well winning five and loosing ones (the unfortunate 0-1 loss to Zamalek SC of Egypt at the group stage of the CAF Champions league in 2016)

EXPECTATIONS

This match is expected to be a tougher encounter than the first leg in Aba, considering the fact that this is the second leg, where the tie will be coming to a conclusion and making it more mouthwatering for neutral observers is the fact that the first leg only ended in a 1-0 win in favour of the Aba landlords, Both teams are expected to go all out and give their each other a run for their money.

For Enyimba FC to come out victorious from this encounter they have to realize that the host team Rivers United will try to anything within their ability to intimedate them in Port Harcourt, so a hostile treatment from the host will be expected. So the team management have to realize this and psych themselves up ahead of such in the game.

In the end what everyone needs to understand is the fact that this is not war, no love should be lost the better team will win and advance to represent Nigeria in the group stages of the competition, because all Nigeria wants is Quality representation.
in my opinion, ENYIMBA FC is the team that can guarantee Nigerians quality representing and I think they will work hard to achieve that, Continuing from Tomorrow’s (Sunday) match.