Both the Head Coach of Kumasi Asante Kotoko football Club and the playing body have made a passionate appeal to Kotoko fans not only to troop to the Baba Yara Sports Stadium today in their numbers, but also offer them their unflinching support as a way of encouraging the players to win massively against Etoile du Sahel in their penultimate group match of the CAF Confederation Cup at the Baba Yara Sports Stadium in Kumasi.
Making the appeal at a Press Conference, moments after their morning training session at the Baba Yara Sports Stadium yesterday, Mr Bashir Hayford noted that encouraging the players in the course of the game was very key to victory “ because matches of such magnitude could be very tough at times, and it is the encouragement of the fans that gingers the boys into action and turns an otherwise gloomy day into a bright one”.
Coach Hayford noted that both the technical team and the players had done their home work very well and were therefore ready for their opponents,” but much also depends on the attitude of the fans”.
He said while fans from other countries continue to cheer their teams, “ even when they commit mistakes on the field of play as a way of encouragement, the opposite is the case in Kumasi, and this mostly affects the psyche of the players, making them nervous, thereby committing more mistakes”.
He accepted the fact that their opponents were very good but gave the assurance that the technical team had worked out a strategy to contain some of their key players to prevent them from causing any havoc in Kumasi.
“ In the first leg, I spotted two players, one of whom scored the two goals, while the other distributed the balls, but none of them will have the chance in Kumasi because there is a strategy to contain both of them,” he assured.
For his part, Eric Bekoe said the time had come for Kotoko fans to prove that they really loved the club by refraining from any action that could affect the spirit of the players.
“ We are eager to prove equal to the task, but the fans will let us down, if they resort to insults at the least mistake we commit on the field,” he noted, adding, “ we love the fans and are prepared to win, ,but we need their support to encourage us”.
Emmanuel Osei Kuffour also urged the fans to have confidence in the players and assured them that they were adequately focused to get past their opponents to be in a better position to win the ultimate.
The game is very crucial to both teams because the Tunisians who won 2-0 in the first leg have already stepped up their training to be able to hold Kotoko in their own backyard as a way of improving their points build-up.
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