Shooting Stars End 27-Year Continental Exile With 1-0 Win Over Tunisia’s CS Sfaxien

Ibadan-based club return to African club football for the first time since 1999, edging their CAF Confederation Cup opponents in the first leg.

Shooting Stars Sports Club of Ibadan returned to continental football for the first time in 27 years with a 1-0 first-leg victory over Tunisia’s CS Sfaxien in the preliminary round of the CAF Confederation Cup, played at the MKO Abiola Sports Arena in Abeokuta on Saturday.

The club, popularly known as the Oluyole Warriors, last featured in continental competition on November 7, 1999, when they drew 2-2 with Accra Hearts of Oak in the CAF Champions League final group stage.

A first-half goal from forward Lucky Emmanuel proved decisive, giving the newly promoted Nigeria Premier Football League side a narrow but significant advantage heading into the second leg in Tunisia.

The match was moved from the club’s traditional home, the Lekan Salami Stadium in Adamasingba, Ibadan, to the MKO Abiola Sports Arena in neighbouring Ogun State, after the Ibadan venue failed to meet CAF’s minimum infrastructure requirements for continental fixtures.

Shooting Stars’ technical adviser, Salisu Yusuf, said the club’s continental return reflected its renewed ambitions. “I was attracted to the challenge of being on the continent and the club’s ambition to win the league… we will be one of the serious contenders,” he said.

Key performers on the night included Gbolagade Adelowo, Sodiq Ibrahim and Mustapha Adams, who combined with Emmanuel to frustrate a Sfaxien side with a long history of North African continental competition.

The result followed a 2-1 league victory over Inter Lagos, which the club’s technical crew had used as final preparation for the continental assignment, and comes as Shooting Stars begin the 2026/27 Nigeria Premier Football League season with renewed optimism after their promotion.

The second leg against CS Sfaxien is scheduled to be played in Tunisia, with Shooting Stars needing only to avoid a heavy defeat to progress to the next round of the competition, given their slender first-leg advantage.

For a club that once dominated Nigerian football in the 1970s and 1980s and remains one of the country’s most historically significant sides, the return to continental competition after nearly three decades has been widely welcomed by Oyo State football followers, many of whom see it as a sign of the club’s gradual revival under its current technical and administrative leadership.