Rivers United thrash Motema Pembe…
Nigerian champions, Rivers United thrash Congolese Daring Club Motema Pembe 3-1 in their rescheduled CAF Confederation Cup (CAFCC) match in Uyo on Thursday.
The Match Day 4 game was initially scheduled to hold on Wednesday but was eventually postponed for twenty-two hours after the visiting team reported difficulties in their flight schedule.
When they arrived on Match Day, they found their hosts too brutal to match with Ghanaian winger Paul Acquah netting a treble to put the hapless Congolese to the sword at the Godswill Akpabio Stadium.
Indeed, Motema Pembe showed enough guts, winning duels and challenging every ball in the opening exchanges but their dogged first half display was undone by Acquah’s first goal in first half stoppage time; the winger timing his run before glancing home an impeccable free kick by in-form Ukeme Williams.
Motema Pembe again responded well after the break but Acquah struck again in the 56th minute, this time volleying home Emmanuel Ampiah’s cross acrobatically with his weaker left foot. The second goal took the sting out of the Congolese but they rose again.
Substitute Mydo Yallet halved the deficit twelve minutes from time when he headed home a cross which initially came off the cross bar but he reacted quickest to stab the ball home.
Acquah however had the last say on the game, firing low into the bottom right in stoppage time to complete a “perfect hattrick” and seal a 3-1 win for the hosts who maintain their three points gap at the top of the Group B table.
United are billed to face another Congolese side, Diables Noirs in their penultimate group stage game on March 19 but it looks as though that game will be shifted due to Nigeria’s governorship elections which was rescheduled for March 18.
