Africa-Press – Tanzania. AFTER being eliminated from the 2022 World Cup qualifiers, Taifa Stars Head Coach Kim Poulsen said he was sorry for the loss claiming individual mistakes by his charges contributed to the setback.
Hopes for the country’s envoys to book a ticket of playing in the biggest world football championship event were dashed after suffering a heavy 3-0 loss to Democratic Republic Congo at Benjamin Mkapa Stadium in Dar es Salaam on Thursday in a game they wanted to win at all cost.
In another group J match on the same day, Benin defeated Madagascar 2-0 to regain command of the group J table with 10 points from five matches and have one game to play before winding up the group stage campaign.
Here, if Benin had lost the game, all three teams Tanzania, DR Congo and Benin could have similar chance of making it into the two-legged knockout encounter, but as it stands, only Benin and DR Congo can make it.
Taifa Stars will face Madagascar in a fixture fulfilling encounter for both sides as a win or loss by either of them will have no impact as far as qualifying into the play-off stage is concerned.
Until the end of the first round, only Benin with 10 points and DR Congo with 8 points have equal possibilities to slide into the knockout stage of the qualifiers hence; their match on Sunday at Stade des Martyrs in DR Congo will be explosive.
At a post-match briefing, Poulsen said he was sorry for the loss insisting that in football, the higher- level opponent you are playing against will punish you if you commit mistakes.
“We made the mistake after six minutes which made them to score and lead by one goal. In between, we played well and after the break, we tried to re-organise ourselves and put pressure on them.
“Then we made another mistake and concede the second goal. But, as I said, you get punished when you play world cup qualification against a 67th FIFA ranked team. This is what we should learn to minimise mistakes,” he said.
He continued: “Today was a setback on our journey of the world cup qualifiers against a strong team from DR Congo who to beat them, you have to perform at your highest level as a team but we did not do that today (Thursday).”
Again, the Danish coach pointed out that they will try to finish their qualifying campaign in style by registering tangible away results against Madagascar on Sunday.
His compatriot for DR Congo Hector Cuper said they were happy with the earned victory while saying they have switched attention on their next match against Benin.
“In the first half, we experienced some problems but we corrected them at the interval. I know Tanzania also had some chances but they could not manage to turn them into goals. We are just happy to win a complicated match,” said the Argentine trainer.
The first game between the two sides in Lubumbashi ended in a 1-1 draw with Simon Msuva equalising to save what seemed to be a sinking ship prior to the return leg, many Tanzanians had strong belief to beat the visitors.
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