SuperSport United caretaker-coach Kaitano Tembo is hoping their stunning come-from-behind 2-1 aggregate win over Atlético Petróleos de Luanda in the Caf Confederation Cup on Friday will unshackle the players as they approach the business end of the domestic campaign.

United booked a place in the Confederation Cup playoff stage with the first round win against the Angolan club.

There they will take on teams knocked out of the first round of the Caf Champions League‚ but Tembo’s attention now shifts to the bread and butter issues of the Premier Soccer League where SuperSport are desperately trying to avoid a relegation scrap.

United have been knocked out of the Nedbank Cup and they will have to wait for almost three weeks for their next official assignment in the league‚ where they are in third-last place. Matsatsantsa take on Polokwane City at the Peter Mokaba Stadium on April 4.

“Each and every game in the league from now on is going to be vital‚” Tembo said.

“The next important game for us is the one against Polokwane City and we are going to prepare our team the same way. We needed this win badly so that we can get that winning feeling back in the dressing room.

“We will go out there to try and win all our remaining matches and I will put out the strongest available team every time.

“We will focus on City now because this week our focus was only on the Confederation Cup where we managed to achieve our mission. This match against Petróleos de Luanda was a buildup to the match against Polokwane.”

Tembo said SuperSport made life difficult for themselves against Petro at times but he was happy with the effort by his players as they managed to come back from a goal down and win 2-1.

“We made it difficult for ourselves at times. In the first half we dominated possession but did not penetrate them enough to create chances. In the second half‚ we started going wide a little bit more and we managed to open them up as they were starting to tire a little bit and we managed to score goals from wide crosses‚” he said.

Petro led the in the game for a while in the second half but Tembo said his team never panicked.

“We never lost hope‚ we have been working hard for the past two weeks and it was going to be unfair for the players to come out of this with nothing‚” the caretaker-coach said.

“We played against Maritzburg United recently and we just could not put the ball in the back of the net. We played against these guys (Petro) in the first leg in their country and we created more chances than them.

“Their gameplan was to get the goal and sit back but we kept on playing. Once you start to panic and rush things‚ you play in their hands.

“I told the players to stick to our plan of moving the ball around and making intelligent and penetrating runs because if we did that they would not keep up with us.”

SuperSport reached last year’s Confed final‚ losing there against TP Mazembe of Democratic Republic of Congo in November.