The Customs sports association (AS Douanes) won on Saturday the 31st edition of the super cup of the Association of Sports Journalists of Burkina (AJSB), their 3rd title in a row , beating Etoile filante de Ouagadougou (EFO) at the Wobi stadium in Bobo-Dioulasso by the smallest of margins (1-0). Half time: 0-0.

While the first period saw the EFO, the Queen of stadiums, put their foot on the ball without being able to find the net, the Gabelous of AS Douanes instead observed and resisted to put their response plan in place , annihilating all the offensive intentions of the Stellists.

Did the heavy rain that fell on the town of Sya have something to do with this starry domination in the first half? It’s just like. In any case, the second period was that of Gabelous who found some support.

Their restless right attacker Drissa Banao ended up discovering that there was favorable space on his side for incursions. After a first unsuccessful attempt, the will-o’-the-wisp returns for a second time with a dry strike
to open the scoring (69th).

The EFO tries to react but finds a team from AS Douanes which has found its rhythm with Clément Pitroipa as conductor. He takes responsibility for all midfield management. His hooks break the lines and create exploitable spaces.

But the center forwards do not find the technical accuracy to score the second goal which would protect Kamou Malo’s team. Only Houzaitfat Compaoré’s attempt caused a cold sweat in the “blue and white” camp where goalkeeper Philippe La Paix Maré trembled and made a hand mistake, letting a helpless ball slip between his legs and fortunately saved by his left side who kept watch over the grain (90+5).

It was after this action that the central referee Benoît Bado whistled the end of hostilities, giving victory to the Douaniers who lifted their 3rd title in a row. The team of Ali Guissou (president) therefore wins the trophy, the gold medal, a set of jerseys and the sum of 3 million FCFA, leaving the silver medal, a set of jerseys and the sum of 2 million FC
FA to its challenger EFO.

From next weekend the two teams will enter African competition. AS Douanes, champion of Burkina in the Champions League, will face Coton Sport from Benin while EFO will face Hafia FC from Guinea.

On the sidelines of the 31st edition of the Super Cup, the AJSB carried out other activities: a blood donation and the planting of nearly 100 plants. This year’s innovation is the creation of an AJSB super cup village to highlight the partners of the sports journalists umbrella organization.

The African campaign in sight

After a second failure in a row, EFO coach Cheick Hamidou Ouattara explained that ‘a final cannot be played. It is earned. We came to win by putting a lot of things in place. Unfortunately we were not effective in the first half. But all in all, we are satisfied with the intensity, desire and determination of the players because we didn’t have enough time to prepare.”

For the CAF preliminaries next week, Mr. Ouattara finds that ‘there is a lot of hope. Our objective in
this final was to prepare the young people to win the first and second legs of the CAF Cup preliminaries (against Hafia FC: editor’s note) and to plan against Enyimba (Nigeria) for the next round.

As for Kamou Malo, coach of AS Douanes who was delighted to have won the AJSB Super Cup trophy, ‘I am one of those who are lucky in competition. Experience also made a difference. The others were not unworthy because it was not a boulevard to win. EFO were in their element with the long balls and that stopped us from playing in the first half. But we already had to contain the EFO and that’s what we did.’

He explains that ‘in the second half the pitch gradually dried out and you saw that we put the ball down and won this battle in midfield. That’s what made us win the match. When you see the construction of the goal, it’s not by chance.’

As for the African campaign, the double champion from Burkina Faso mentions that ‘without hope we stop living. Let’s pray to God that it works for us. It’s Burkinabè football tha
t wins.’

Source : Burkina Information Agency