Liberia’s Football Association Cup Champions, Paynesville FC, is currently standing a single point away in order to make their debut participation in the group stage of the Confederation Cup for African Football.
The annual national league break has been a rewarding one for the sports community of Paynesville seeing a club belonging to the people moving fearlessly through the preliminaries of the continental inter-club competition for the first time in Paynesville Football Club’s history.
As a debutant to continental football in Africa, Paynesville FC affectionately known as the ‘Citizens’ has demonstrated outstanding performances in the preliminaries and is headed to making history for themselves.
This weekend in Mali, the Liberian outfit will get to action pushing for a draw against the Malian knockout Champions, Stade de Malian.
Representing Liberia, Paynesville management and player are hoping to secure a space in the continental competition group stage.
An achievement of this feat will make the Citizens (Paynesville FC) the first Liberian team to participate in the continental interclub competition since it started across Africa.
Over the weekend, the boys played their last match against their Malian counterpart home in Paynesville at the Samuel Kanyon Doe Sports Complex in the first leg of the second preliminary round.
The match ended victoriously decisive for the LFA national first division league side with a lone goal courtesy of Ayetay Yangbe.
He scored in the middle of the second half after both teams had played to a goalless draw in the first half.
The defender’s lone finish got overwhelming for the local squad as it became a focus stone to take them to the backyard of their counterpart with a narrow advantage.
Since the start of interclub last August, Paynesville FC has played three matches against two foreign opponents without tasting defeat.
They first played double header against Fovu Club de Boham of Cameroon winning on 5-0 on aggregate to get to the second preliminaries.
After their most recent match against the Malian Cup holders, official of Paynesville FC and other football stakeholders joined Liberian football celebration growing support for the team to qualify for the CAF Cup group stage.
Attorney Joseph Howe and Eugene Nagbe, the Vice President for Operations and Board Chairman of Paynesville FC, told post match media interactions that the club has placed all eyes and focus on participating in the group stage of the Confederations’ Cup.
According to the two ranking officials of the club, football support in Liberia seems to be difficult in getting but the dedication of those standing behind the little-known Liberian side is an assurance that there are prospects ahead.
“The boys did exceptionally well to have a win over Stade de Malian that have a very strong interclub experience across the African Continent. We are confident of taking the team to the group stage for the first time that is why we have developed a team with a good style from the third division to where they are now,” Nagbe stressed.
Meanwhile, officials of the club are calling on all citizens to join Paynesville in supporting their team in the last qualifier match.
According to Chairman Nagbe, the club is not only representing the community and people of Paynesville but the entire country.
