Association Sportive de la Kozah (ASKO) of Togo are one of the surprises of the TotalEnergies Confederation Cup this season and are not just mere participant in this year’s edition as they also habour big ambitions.
52 years after its establishment, ASKO will finally taste the cake of a group stage of an African interclub competition. In recent years, the Togolese side are enjoying huge dominated in her West African country. At the end of the 2021-2022 season, ASKO won the Togo championship for the third time in a row.
And from the preliminaries of the Champions League 2022-2023, put on display a glimpse of its ambitious targets. The first round went smoothly with the elimination of FC Nouadhibou from Mauritania. But in the second round, JS Kabylie, with its experience of competition, won, without being so superior to the Kondonas.
On dropping into the Confederation Cup, ASKO were undettered as they seized the opportunity. Against Tunisian giants CS Sfaxien, Jean-Paul Abalo’s men won in Lomé 2-1 before going to achieve the feat of a 0-0 draw in Sfax.
With group stage place sealed, ASKO are not resting on their oars. “Our goal for the future is to represent our country well. We know that we were not expected at this level, we will be the little thumb but as we say the appetite comes with eating so we will do everything to go far because these are times that we will not always have,” according to Jean-Paul Abalo, the club’s manager.
Two years after taking over the team, Abalo is a technician for major events, having previously served as an assistant to erstwhile manager Claude Le Roy at the Eperviers (2016-2021), and he had qualified Togo for the first time for the TotalEnergies African Nations Championship final phase in 2020. And ASKO can count on the calm of his leader who anticipates a tough group stage.
“It will be difficult because the qualified teams are regulars in the competition. In addition, we have a young team,” admits cautious Abalo to CAFOnline.com.
“We will also have the championship to negotiate. We will play every three days so we will need good management of the group. We are not going to do figuration, we will do everything to get out through the front door.”
Relying on the youth and experience players in their ranks, among others, the midfielder Dove Wome returned to the country after ten years in South Africa, Latvia, Kuwait and Iraq, having featured in the South 2013 TotalEnergies Africa Cup of Nations with the Eperviers, and Guinean defender Ben Youssouf Camara who also joined the club in June.
As well, then young guard with top scorer Moutalabou Ouattara along with young defender Abdoul Halimou Sama at age 20.
The ASKO project is slowly being set up with the aim of titillating the greats of the continent. The club has also recently announced the recruitment of a sports director Akeylah-Esso Tchangaï, who has been tasked with the responsibility of the sports re-organization at the club and setting up the youth categories at the ASKO Kara training center.
A good campaign in the TotalEnergies Confederation Cup group pahse will boost the club’s long term ambitions for the years to come.
Source: Confederation of African Football