Africa-Press – Tanzania. TANZANIA’S flag bearers in CAF Champions League, SIMBA have an advantage to beat their hosts, FC Platnum in their CAF Champions League match tomorrow because of their match fitness.
The club’s chief executive officer, Barbara Gonzalez said yesterday their opponents have not been seriously active for about a year because of various reasons including Coronavirus pandemic that has hit many countries globally.
Zimbabwe is one of the countries that are still hit by the wave of Coroanvirus and because of that Barbara said that the whole team are taking all necessary measures like wearing masks and sanitising for their safety. Speaking on match fitness she said “Simba have played a number of matches including those of CAF Champions league in the preliminaries plus several others in the Mainland Premier league,”
“This is an advantage for us ,” said Gonzalez. She said also that Platimum, despite being at home, will be playing at a new ground, hence losing their home supporters.
“They are not residing in Harare, their home city’s weather is as hot as Dar es Salaam,” “They are therefore acclimatising with the cold weather here in Harare like the same we do here,” she said.
However, she also said that the Harare weather do not bother his players since it is similar to that of Mbeya and Arusha where Simba played a number of Premier league matches. “According to weather forecast reports, there is a possibility for the rain to pour down tomorrow during the match and we have put our mind ready for that,” she said.
Simba are in Zimbabwe to play host Platinum FC at the National Stadium in Harare in the CAF Champions League’s first leg encounter tomorrow. The two sides will meet again at Benjamin Mkapa Stadium in Dar es Salaam early next year. Barbara Gonzalez said the players are responding well to the training sessions imparted to them before the crucial match.
“The entire squad comprising of 24 players and technical bench members plus other leaders of the club are all well looking forward to the game. “We had a good reception made by our Tanzanian ambassador to Zimbabwe, Emmanuel Mbenna, Zimbabwean football Federation and FC Platinum officials, “What we request at this juncture from our members and fans wherever they are, including all Tanzanians is to pray for their team, to win so that we can have an advantage while heading to the reverse game at home,” she said.
Se continued: “When we win, it means the whole country has won, that is why we call upon all Tanzanians to give us full support.” To reach this stage, Simba crashed out Nigerian side Plateau United by an aggregate of 1-0 courtesy of an all important away goal netted by locomotive midfielder Clatous Chama.
