No room for complacency - Oti Akenten

Accra, April 25, GNA - Red Arrows of Zambia seem to be a relatively easy task for Ghana's King Faisal in the last phase of the qualifying series of the Confederation Cup competition, but Faisal's coach, Francis Oti-Akenten thinks otherwise.

Coach Oti-Akenten said he believes that any attempt to underrate the Zambians would be at the peril of his side since football is a game of uncertainties.

He said it would therefoe be disastrous for any one to predict a walk over for Faisal despite the poor performance displayed by the Zambian team in their last game.

The Zambian team, campaigners in the CAF Champions League were relegated to this stage after losing on a 9-1 aggregate to the defending champions, Enyimba of Nigeria in the last round of the qualifying series.

Coach Oti-Akenten said it would be unfair to use the performance to judge the future output of the Zambians.

Arrows will now have to battle with Faisal to determine which of the clubs advances to the league stages of the second rated Confederation Cup competition.

Despite the huge defeat suffered by the Zambians at the hands of the Nigerians, Coach Oti-Akenten told the GNA Sports in an interview that there is no room for complacency as his team cannot afford to miss out of the league stages for the second time.

"The fact that the Zambians lost by the huge margin against the Nigerians does not make them a weak team, that is why we are not taking chances at all", he added.

Coach Oti-Akenten said that they would rather intensify their training in order not to be over-taken by events since that would also affect the image of the nation on the international scene.

The coach was, however, confident of passing the test to make Faisal the third Ghanaian Club to participate in the competition after Hearts and Kotoko played in the finals of the maiden edition of the competition during the last soccer season.

The Ghanaians are scheduled to play the first leg in Zambia in the latter parts of May and return to Accra for the second leg in two weeks time.