Africa-Press – Tanzania. SIMBA and Azam will be hunting for Azam Sports Federation Cup (ASFC) semifinal slots when they face Dodoma Jiji and Rhino Rangers respectively today.
Simba, who are the defending champions of the competition, will be at the Benjamin Mkapa Stadium in Dar es Salaam entertaining Dodoma Jiji, while Azam will battle it out against Rhino Rangers at the CCM Kambarage Stadium in Shinyanga.
The hard part of the contest is that matches are played on knockout format, meaning that once you lose, then off you go, paving a way for others to progress to the next stage.
However, many football fans are eager to see how Simba will respond after they were knocked out of the CAF Champions League quarterfinals stage by South Africa based Kaizer Chiefs on 4-3 aggregate.
On paper, Dodoma Jiji are far behind of Simba in terms of quality plus investment but on the pitch, both sides do have equal advantage to do well and sail through into the last four.
Speaking ahead of the match, Simba Manager Patrick Rweyemamu said all players in the squad are ready for the important game.
“We do not underrate them (Dodoma Jiji) because they too, have a good team capable to win matches…on our side, we are ready and all players are fit,” he said.
He also disclosed that center- back Joash Onyango, who was injured during the Kaizer Chiefs duel and got replaced by Kennedy Juma and is training with the rest in the squad.
On the other hand, Azam will be face a tricky away test to ‘dark horse’ Rhino Rangers as they seek to keep alive their hopes of competing in the continental club championship next season Facing Rhino Rangers which are the only First Division League (FDL) team to go this far, will certainly give Azam an advantage to sail through easily but that is never a guarantee for the ‘ice-cream makers’ side to expect a steep ride.
