Africa-Press – Tanzania. SIMBA face another tough Premier League hurdle; Namungo in a midweek nail-biting encounter at Benjamin Mkapa Stadium in Dar es Salaam today.
The other league fixtures today will see Coastal Union hosting Tanzania Prisons at Mkwakwani Stadium in Tanga while Biashara United will be at Karume Stadium in Musoma hosting Mbeya City.
Speaking on Tuesday in the city, Simba Assistant Coach Selemani Matola said they are well prepared for the match saying facing Namungo has never been an easy ride.
“We know that we are playing against one of the best teams in the league, but we have had ample preparations to register a win against them,” Matola said while insisting that winning is their top priority.
On his part, Namungo skipper Hamis Fhaki called on his teammates to approach the game with discipline throughout the entire 90 minutes of play.
“We know that we are playing against the defending champions as such, we need to respect them and have discipline at the same time in order to stamp a victory,” he said.
The defending champions go into the match with all precautions after being held to a barren draw against Coastal Union in their past premier league match at the same venue.
The outcome was rather a disappointing for Simba bearing in mind that they had to pocket vital three points to keep rolling towards the top seat of the table but, things were hard for them.
To make it worse, their center-back Henock Inonga was red carded in the closing stages of the match to following his head-butting of a Coastal Union player as such; he will miss today’s game.
This will force caretaker coach Thierry Hitimana to deploy either Pascal Wawa or Kennedy Juma as back up of Joash Onyango at the defensive line of the team to make it unbreakable.
Also, veteran midfielder Jonas Mkude is back into the action and he was introduced in their game with Coastal Union after being sidelined for a long time as such; Simba fans are expecting the best from him as long as he wins more game time.
However, the game against Namungo is always a nerve-cracking whenever the two sides meet since both teams have quality players capable to change digits at the scoreboard any moment during the battle.
In recent times, Simba have always been posting good results against Namungo in league matches hence it still remains a puzzle of what sort of final scoreline people should expect.
However, like many teams in the league, Namungo’s run in their four opening matches has not been that impressive as they have just won one match, stamping two draws and losing one game in the process.
They lost 1-0 to Azam at Azam Complex in the city in one of the tough matches of the season which saw the hosts scoring late to salvage a point from a home territory.
Their coach Hemed Morocco will therefore be eager to guide his side to the second victory of the season but it will not be that easy against the defending champions who badly want to emerge winners today after a stormy start of the campaign.
At Mkwakwani Stadium, both Coastal Union and Tanzania Prisons have not won any match from their four games played as such; each of them will approach the encounter seriously to search for their first three points of the campaign.
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