Lobi Stars coach Solomon Ogbeide has revealed how they managed to beat Gor Mahia and reach the group stages of Caf Champions League.
The Kenyan champions were poised to advance ahead of the Nigerian outfit having won the first leg 3-1 but The Pride of Benue shocked many after they scored two late goals to win 2-0 and progress on the away goal rule.
Coach Ogbeide now says they worked on players’ psychology and also watched the match tapes of the first leg towards making appropriate corrections on the areas they faltered in Nairobi and he was elated that his players played to instructions in Enugu.
Ogbeide confessed that they knew almost nothing about Gor Mahia prior to the first leg encounter and that they lost by such wide margin because of some inexplicable mistakes his players made during the course of the 90 minutes.
“When we went to Kenya, we knew nothing about our opponents besides scanty information we got about them," Ogbeide told Goal.com.
“We went to Nairobi very prepared but we could not get it right there. They ought not to have beaten us the way they did at the end of the first 90 minutes and it was the reason I said it was based on our attitude that we lost the game and not that they were the better team.
"We worked on it psychologically. We looked at the match tapes and we saw where we faltered. We got their strong and weak points and we worked on them. When you have faith in your work you will remain very optimistic. I was very optimistic that we would win.
“It is football for you where blamed and credit are apportioned in almost equal proportion. If I win or lose I take responsibility. There were some obvious mistakes in Nairobi and I corrected them. Our own kind of correction is to guard against further reoccurrence and it is not to crucify them.”
Gor Mahia will now drop to the play-offs of Caf Confederation Cup.
