Cotonsport co-trainer Gabriel Haman has uttered that his team is out to right their wrongs of the TotalEnergies CAF champions league when they play Hilal on Friday.
Haman has worked as assistant with the Cotonsport franchise for over a decade but was promoted to the post of a lead trainer last term, and he made an instant impact, with the club’s 17th league title.
‘We made errors of debutants due to fear from some of our players,’ coach Haman pointed out, insisting on the team’s 5-year of absence in the CAF champions league.
We have seen videos of Hilal against Ahly. The team is constituted of players mostly of the Sudanese national team,” coach Haman opined.
In conformity with coach Gabriel Haman’s quote, all that Cotonsport did was shoot themselves in the foot against a well oiled Sundowns side that took full advantage last Friday.
Cotonsport lost 3-1 to Sundowns but that, according to coach Haman, is well behind the team.
‘It is true that the defeat didn’t do us any good.
‘We started preparations just after the game that we lost against Sundowns and we just finished the last training on the eve of the game.’
Gabriel Haman was assistant to coach Aboubakar Souleymanou when Cotonsport reached the semi of the CAF Confederation cup in 2021, but the gaffer admitted that the champions league is more sophisticated.
“We have players who haven’t played in this competition. They thought it was like the CAF Confederation cup, but they are just finding out that it is different. We have learned from out mistakes. From the second half against Downs, we did a lot of things right and it was visible.”
Sundowns lead group B with 6 points but the the dynamics could quickly change with a win for either Cotonsport or Al Hilal.
Al Hilal are from a moral boosting win against Al Ahly on game day 2 which took them to 3 points on the log. Ahly and Cotonsport both have a game in hand, but they are yet to register points.
