Gor Mahia failed to proceed through to the CAF Confederations Cup group stages after they lost 2-1 on aggregate against Congo Brazzaville's Otoho d'Oyo.
K'Ogalo had suffered a 1-0 in the first leg of the fixture staged in Congo before settling for a 1-1 draw in the return leg played at Nyayo National Stadium on Sunday, December 5th.
Roland Okouri scored for the visitors in the draw to cool any threat from the hosts who despite scoring through John Macharia could not find the net again. Gor Mahia started the match on the wrong foot after finding themselves trailing 1-0 inside the opening 10 minutes.
Roland Okouri who scored the winner during the first leg played in Congo returned to haunt K'Ogalo when he gave the visitors a two-goal advantage with a goal in the ninth minute after tapping in a rebound from close range with Gad Mathews left with nothing to do.
The lead was however short lived after Macharia took advantage of confusion and melee in Otoho box to score into an empty net when the visitors goalkeeper miscalculated his move in the 12th minute.
No goals were scored onwards till the 90th minute as Otoho held on to qualify on aggregate. With the loss, K'Ogalo squandered a chance to advance to the group stage, where they had a glorious opportunity to pocket Ksh 30,937,500 (US$275,000) at a minimum.
Gor's head coach Mark Harrison blamed their defeat on hard luck, saying his charges gave out their best. Harrison nonetheless called out his squad for failing to capitalise on glaring opportunities. “It simply wasn't our day. We deserved to win the match. However, we need to be more clinical in front of goal in the future if we expect to win matches of this calibre,” said Harrison.
The gaffer added: “Our midfield was a little bit disjointed and our forwards were left cut out for the most part of the action. I guess we deserved to do more to post a better result.” Last season, Gor suffered the same fate after crashing 3-2 on aggregate to Zambian side Napsa at Nyayo Stadium, also at the play-offs stage.
Elsewhere, Tusker Fc lost 0-1 on aggregate to CS Sfaxien in their second preliminary round, second leg of CAF Confederations Cup in Sfax, Tunisia.
After a barren first leg draw in Nairobi, Tusker travelled to Tunisia with their target set on upsetting the home side, but found themselves on the back foot after 35 minutes. Aymen Harzi's strike from the spot ten minutes to the breather was all that the Tunisians needed to win the game, as Tusker had Karlos Kirenge sent off for a second booking four minutes into second half stoppage time.
Record three-time champions CS Sfaxien who last won the title in 2013 completed a 14-team pack through to the mini-league stage.
In Bechar, Algeria’s JS Saoura produced an amazing comeback to beat Ghana’s Hearts of Oak 4-0 and reach the group stage winning 4-2 on aggregate.Saoura had lost the first leg 2-0 in Accra last weekend. Meanwhile in Bamako, Mali’s Binga couldn’t find a similar comeback, as they fell short to beat Zanaco 2-0, leaving the Zambians to reach the group stage winning 3-2 on aggregate.
Zanaco carried a healthy 3-0 lead from the first leg. In Lusaka, Simba SC lost 2-1 to home side Red Arrows of Zambia on the day but still progressed with a 4-2 aggregate score having won the first leg 3-0 in Dar es Salaam.
The winners of the continental second-tier showpiece will walk away with a whopping US$1.25 million in prize money. The runner-up will pocket US$625,000 while all the Semi-finalists will bank US$450,000. All quarter-finalists will walk away US$350,000 richer. The third-placed in this stage will each get US$275,000 while the teams that place the fourth 4th will get US$275,000.
Clubs that qualified for the CAF Confederation Cup group stage so far:
Simba SC (Tanzania)
Otoho d'Oyo (Congo)
TP Mazembe (DRC Congo)
Cotonsport (Cameroon)
Asec Mimosas (Ivory Coast)
USGN (Niger)
Orlando Pirates (South Africa)
Al Masry (Egypt)
Pyramids (Egypt)
Zanaco (Zambia)
Sfaxien (Tunisia)
JS Saoura (Algeria)
Al Ahli Tripoli (Libya)