AfricaPress-Tanzania: AZAM have already started firing warning shots at Simba one day before their Premier League match at Benjamin Mkapa Stadium in Dar es Salaam tomorrow.
The two teams meet in a peak of the week fixture battling for the important three points to continue scaling up on the league ladder as the road to the championship becomes narrower game after game.
It will be the fight between second and third-placed league occupants with Simba looking a better side to win the encounter but, lately, Azam have too overhauled their squad to make it competitive enough and challenge for the title.
The Ice cream makers side have hauled 32 points from 17 matches and head into the clash with six points adrift the defending champions who face a tricky fixture as any unconvincing results will be a disappointment for them.
Their recent 2-1 victory against Dodoma Jiji has given them confidence to do well and thrash Azam who have not yet given up in the race for the season’s title.
“It’s true, we are going to play a big match against Simba but we have had good preparations to make sure that we get something tangible from the game. “We have played several friendly matches and lately, we had a good International friendly encounter versus TP Mazembe (1-1) which gave the coach a good test of his current squad prior to facing Simba,” said Azam’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Abdulkarim Amin ‘Popat’ on Friday in the city.
He continued: “I have not said that we will win the match but rather we are going to compete and the good judge will be the normal 90 minutes of play. What is remaining now is the work rate of players and the technical bench. “The management of the club has finished its work. The coach (George Lwandamina) requested the team to remain in Zanzibar for extra ten days after the Mapinduzi Cup to play friendly encounters, we conceded that.
“After returning to the Mainland, we played a friendly match against KMC which we won and later we, convinced TP Mazembe to play with us. In such doing, the management has nothing more to do since we have played our part and the remaining portion is for the team to execute their role,” Popat said.
The return of Prince Dube to action after recovering from injury has beefed up the striking force of the club which was not that sharp during his absence and it remains a puzzle if he will have a chance to net tomorrow.
For Lwandamina, it is going to be another big test for him even though he has faced Simba previously when he was in charge of his former employer Young Africans.
