Author: BENJAMIN BEN
AfricaPress-Tanzania: AZAM remain certain that they will clinch the Mainland Premier League championship this season despite succumbing to a 1-0 loss to KMC at Uhuru Stadium in Dar es Salaam over the weekend.
It was another bitter pill to swallow for the Ice cream makers who conceded their second defeat of the campaign that gives a relief to their closest challengers, Young Africans and Simba. KMC’s Reliant Lusajo scored the winner that elevated the team to the fifth slot on the table with 18 points, and they look to have started gaining momentum as games unfold.
It was the fifth victory for the Kinondoni-based club out of eleven matches of their campaign. They have so far stamped three draws and three defeats in that order. Making his brief assessment after the game, KMC Head Coach John Simkoko said his game plan worked well for them on the day to take home all three points.
“I cannot say we were much better than them but we just had to follow our game plan and at the end, we succeeded to get what we wanted, which is good for us,” said Simkoko. For Azam, they will face their major test of the campaign when they host Young Africans on Wednesday at Azam Complex in the outskirts of Dar es Salaam.
Unlike last season whereby Azam’s home big league fixtures against Simba and Yanga were played at Benjamin Mkapa Stadium, the club has opted to host the big two teams at their own artificial turf. With the capacity of 10,000 people, the venue is usually considered as small especially when entertaining Simba and Yanga which have big fan base in the country.
As such, sport fans are anxious to see which side will emerge winners on the day bearing in mind that both teams have had major big signings during the past transfer window to beef up their squads for the league marathon. Azam last won the league title in 2014, hence, six years have elapsed without them lifting high the lucrative silverware as such, it is yet to be seen whether the current investment pumped in their team will award them the title at the end of the season
