Of course, the result was not desired, especially by coach Carlos Manuel Vaz Pinto, who was appointed to steer the club that was deep into a managerial crisis.
Firstly, his job was not going to be easy since he arrived at a time when Gor Mahia were involved in a sponsorship tussle with Football Kenya Federation over the StarTimes broadcasting partnership.
Secondly, the Green Army were under the guidance of an interim coach in Sammy Omollo, who has since been confirmed as an assistant, when they took part in the Champions League.
Omollo was urgently invited to steer the club after Roberto Oliveira Gonzalez was disqualified from overseeing the continental games as he did not possess the requisite qualification papers.
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“The game is not over yet,” Fathi told
Goal after the match played at Nyayo Stadium. “We are celebrating here now and I have told my players that immediately we land in Lusaka; we must shift focus to the return leg.
“Gor Mahia is a very difficult team, they proved they are tough to beat until we were forced to change our tact, so we cannot be able to underrate them now we won, we have to stay focused and work on mistakes we committed ahead of the return leg.”
During the match, Napsa Stars scored their goal from the only shot on target and when asked whether that was his game plan, Fathi explained: “We did manage one short on target which resulted in the goal, but it was not our plan to play like that, you know the game was locked in the midfield so I had to plan and change the tact and it is the reason we managed to win the game.”