The head coach of the Trust Bank team, Sultan Jallow has expressed delight to book a place into the knockout stage of the ongoing inter-bank football tournament after defeating FBN Bank 2-0 during their final group game played at the Independence Stadium in Bakau on Friday.
Sanusi Darboe opened the scoring for Trust Bank through the spot in the 65th minute of the second half, before Mam Nderry Touray added the second goal for Trust Bank in the dying minute of the game to make it a comfortable victory for the Trust Bank Limited side.
Sanusi Darboe had another opportunity to extend the score-line earlier but missed the spot kick after Trust Bank were awarded a second penalty in the second half of the game.
“This win is very important to us (Trust Bank), after drawing our opening two games. There was a lot of pressure on us to progress to the next stage of the tournament,” he said.
Coach Jallow noted that collecting their first maximum points in the tournament would help to motivate his side more, noting that they always played very well in terms of performance but were unfortunate in terms of scoring.
Trust Bank who progressed to the next stage of the tournament after collecting five points in three matches.
Coach Jallow added that the knockout stage of the competition is all about commitment and hard work on the training ground.
“We have a very good team but need more improvement, especially our scoring. We will go back to the drawing board and work on our weaknesses.”
According to him, their aim in the tournament is to reach the final and win it.
For his part, Musa Mbengeh, head of FBN Bank said they lost the game because some of his players didn’t come to the game,
“As bankers, some of our players didn’t appear today because of late deposits. Most of my players are tellers and today is Friday. So the time didn’t favour us which was why I didn’t have my first eleven intact to be able to compete for this game.”
He added that the tactics he played against Trust Bank didn’t favour them due to the absence of some of his best players.
“I took the defeat in good faith because there are reasons which we believed led to our defeat against Trust Bank.”
Coach Mbengeh of FBN Bank who collected one after two matches said that they are going to prepare very well ahead of their final group game against AGIB Bank so as to book a place in the knockout stage of the tournament.
Mega Bank were forced to a 1-1 draw by AGIB Bank in the earlier game played on Saturday, before Zenith Bank defeated Central Bank in the late encounter on Saturday.
