St Michel 3 – 1 How Mine
HOW Mine were clobbered for the first time in the Orange Caf Confederation Cup first round, second leg at the Stade Linite on Saturday, but still sailed through on goal aggregate after Kuda Musharu came to their rescue.
In the previous three matches, How Mine thumped Chouni of Zanzibar 4-0 at home and 2-1 away before routing St Michel 5-1 last Saturday.
It was Musharu’s sixth goal of the competition which came in the 57th minute as St Michel were leading 3-0 and in desperate need of just a single goal to progress to the next round.
How Mine will now face Bayelsa United of Nigeria who beat Konzo FC of Congo-Brazzaville 2-0 late on Saturday.
The Bulawayo side had won the opening leg 5-1 at Barbourfields last Saturday and were looking at finishing the Islanders in the opening half, but fell behind after only six minutes of play through Jocelyn Fenosoa from a beautiful curling free-kick.
Ten minutes later, How Mine were 2-0 down when veteran defender Gilbert Banda was outpaced by Leeroy Mathiot as How Mine defenders allowed the pouring home team a chance to exchange passes in the box, leaving Fenosoa to score his second goal of the afternoon.
And it all fell apart two minutes before half time as Alex Nibourrette made it 3-0 leaving the hosts with 45 minutes to search for one goal.
Pushing men forward and with a bit of some luck from a St Michel clearance that deflected off the referee’s head, Musharu struck his sixth in the 57th minute to seal a hard fought victory for the gold miners.Advertisement