10-man Rivers United of Nigeria held Rwanda’s Rayon Sports to a barren draw to book the final slot in the CAF Confederations Cup last 16 on 2-0 aggregate on Saturday in Kigali.
Rayon needed two goals to send the tie to the dreaded spot kicks or 3-0 win to out rightly sail through, however, the “pride of rivers” were not going to bulge despite immense pressure from the “Gikundiro”, backed by a partisan crowd at the Amahoro Stadium.
United played the better part of the second stanza a man down but showed great resilience to keep the score line tidy.
Rayon’s Masoud Djuma coach was predictably disappointed; nonetheless he praised the visitors on their deserved qualification.
“We lost to a better and more experienced side today and I want to say congratulations to Rivers united for their qualification,” Djuma said.
United’s technical manager Stanley Eguma was delighted they made the group phase qualification.
“I am pleased that we were able to get the job done and qualify for the group stage of the competition, he said.
He added: “We had a tactical plan and even after we had a man sent off, we did not panic.”
The draws for the group phase will take place Wednesday at the CAF’s Headquarters in Cairo, Egypt.
In the group stage, each group is played on a home-and-away round-robin basis.
The winners and runners-up of each group advance to the quarters.
The 2017 CAF Confederations Cup Group Phase Qualifiers:
1. MC Alger (Algeria)
2. Recreativo do Libolo (Angola)
3. TP Mazembe (Congo DR)
4. Smouha (Egypt)
5. CAF Mounana (Gabon)
6. Horoya (Guinea)
7. FUS Rabat (Morocco)
8. Platinum Stars (South Africa)
9. SuperSport United (South Africa)
10. Al-Hilal Al-Ubayyid (Sudan)
11. Mbabane Swallows (Swaziland)
12. Club Africain (Tunisia)
13. CS Sfaxien (Tunisia)
14. KCAA (Uganda)
15. Zesco United (Zambia)
16. Rivers United
