A few days ago ‘the Taifa Stars’ of Tanzania ended a European tour, after a two-week training trip to Denmark and Switzerland in preparation of their Group Seven African Nations Cup qualifier against Mozambique on 8 September. They lost their first match 2-1 to Danish second division club Skjold, followed by another defeat 1-0 to Swiss first division club Yverdon, before losing to another Swiss club, FC Beaulmes. They got their only victory over Al Tadhamon of Kuwait.
Despite those poor results, Tanzania Brazilian coach Marcio MAXIMO believes that ‘the Taifa Stars’ can still qualify for the Nations Cup finals. But to qualify they need to win at home to Mozambique and hope that Senegal slip up against Burkina Faso. If they succeed they will reach their first Nations Cup finals since 1980. “It will be tough but we will try hard,” said MAXIMO to BBC Sport.
Since Tanzania are going to play Mozambique under floodlights the Tanzania football officials have invited Uganda for a friendly match tomorrow Saturday 1st September to help the players to get used to playing under floodlights. The match against Mozambique will be played at night, kicking-off at the same time as the tie between Senegal and Burkina Faso. This decision follows a Confederation of African Football instruction issued on Friday 10 August 2007 concerning the matches in Groups Seven, Eight, Nine and Ten which will determine the remaining qualifiers for the 2008 finals in Ghana to start at the same time. The CAF said that playing the matches at the same time will prevent teams from gaining an unfair advantage.
Samuel MBAJUM
(Source: BBC Sport, with Emmanuel MUGA in Dar es Salaam)
31/08/2007 |
