Zamalek’s Vieira: We had a bad game, but we can still qualify

Ethiopia’s St. George forced their hosts Zamalek of Egypt to a 1-1 draw at the 2013 Orange CAF Champions League second round  first leg, played at the Cairo Air Defense Stadium on Saturday. Zamalek’s Brazilian manager Jorvan Vieira expressed his disappointment with his team’s performance, but vowed to fight for a win in the return leg scheduled at Addis Ababa in a fortnight.

“We had a bad game”, Vieira told Cafonline.com after the match. “We didn’t expect that. We altered our tactics for the game but unfortunately this didn’t work. Everyone is responsible for this result, including me as the coach. We lost our concentration and made a lot of mistakes. That wasn’t our day by any means”.

Vieira refused to blame the supporters’ absence as the game was held behind closed doors for security reasons. “Our supporters’ absence didn’t affect the result. We play behind closed doors in the domestic league and yet we won all our games. We entered the game without concentration and missed harmony. I believe we snatched a draw from St. George. I’m not satisfied with the result nor the performance”, added Vieira.

The Brazilian added that his charges faced many difficulties on course to the game. “We had a lot of obstacles as we prepared to face St. George and played under intense pressure. When you play under pressure you commit mistakes. We have to avoid these mistakes in the return leg. In football possession means nothing without scoring goals, which we didn’t do today”, Vieira explained.

Regarding the return leg in Addis Ababa Vieira said “Definitely this is going to be a very tough fixture, but we have nothing to lose. We’ll play to win and qualify from Ethiopia. It has become even a harder mission now but we are capable of winning and reaching the group stage. We’ll start preparing immediately and the league games will be a good test before we fly to Addis Ababa. In modern football there’s nothing called home and away, you have to play to win all your matches”, Vieira concluded.

The return leg is scheduled on weekend of 3- 5 May at the Addis Ababa National Stadium, with the aggregate winner qualifying to the mini league stage.