Africa-Press – Tanzania. TAIFA Stars skipper Mbwana Samatta and striker Simon Msuva are expected to join their colleagues in a camp today to boost morale ahead of the World Cup qualifying match against Democratic Republic of Congo on Thursday.
The two teams meet in the fifth fixture of Group J at Benjamin Mkapa Stadium in Dar es Salaam, where 30,000 spectators have been permitted to attend the match and cheer the teams.
A win to the country’s envoys will see them collect 10 points thereby boosting a chance to perform well in their final away match against Madagascar on November 14th. In his remarks recently, the team’s Manager Nadir Haroub said the arrival of the two key players will complete the called brigade hence enabling Coach Kim Poulsen to apply his tactics well.
“At the moment, all attention has been directed to the DR Congo match in which we need to do well by pocketing three points prior to the last game of the group. “Remember we lost here against Benin and the coach is putting things together to make sure that mistakes which made us lose versus Benin are not repeated at all,” said the former Taifa Stars captain.
Visitors DR Congo have pocketed five points from four games and also consider this match too crucial as it will decide their fate in the whole World Cup campaign.
Any negative results to them will dent their hopes of making it into the knockout phase. The first leg battle between Taifa Stars against DR Congo ended in a 1-1 draw and DR Congo were the first to score before Simon Msuva equalised for Stars. The Thursday encounter gives Stars a good chance to break the tie and register maximum points at the home soil.
However, Tanzania will be cautious not to accept another home defeat as they did to Benin when they went down 1-0 in their previous match before winning with the same goal margin in the return leg encounter in Benin few days later. As it stands, Poulsen’s men have stamped success in two matches against Madagascar (3- 2) and Benin (1-0).
They posted one draw (1-1) versus DR Congo before succumbing to a 1-0 home defeat to Benin. Another hot match in the group will see Madagascar taking on Benin with the former sitting at the bottom of the table with three points as such, unconvincing outcome after the 90 minutes of play will see them crashing out.
On the other hand, Benin who are like Taifa Stars, have pocketed seven points, therefore they regard their encounter with Madagascar as a gateway to reach the Promised Land. It should be noted that one best team from each of the ten groups will march into the two-legged home and away knockout stage of which five teams will represent Africa in the FIFA World Cup finals to be staged in Qatar.
So far, Morocco and Senegal have advanced into the knockout stage of the qualifiers with two matches to go as such; they are waiting for other eight teams to join them.
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