TANZANIA Football Federation (TFF) has organised a special Under-16 football competition set to attract three countries which are Liberia, Malawi and host Tanzania.
The contest which begins tomorrow at Uhuru Stadium in Dar es Salaam is aimed to give the country’s U-17 side Serengeti Boys a good platform to prepare for their busy schedule in the qualifiers of 2021 U-17 African Cup of Nations (AFCON) whose finals will be staged in Cameroon.
Speaking recently in the city, TFF Media and Communication Officer Clifford Ndimbo said Serengeti Boys is already in the camp preparing for the competition while urging more fans to go to the stadium to cheer their team.
” We have deliberately decided to call Under-16 players because by next year, they will be 17 years old as such, eligible for the youth football competition,” Ndimbo said.
According to him, Liberia are already in the country with a contingent of 29 players while Malawi are set to arrive on Wednesday and the first match will see Tanzania taking on Liberia.
” We strongly believe that our team will receive good preparation games from the two invited teams as we want to go further during the next year’s edition,” said Ndimbo.
Tanzania hosted the past edition (2019 ) of U-17 AFCON tournament of which Cameroon emerged champions after defeating Guinea 5-3 on post-match penalties as the normal period of play elapsed goalless.
It was however unsuccessful mission for the country’s representatives Serengeti Boys who failed to impress after losing all their three group stage matches which saw them finishing the contest without bagging any point.
They accepted defeats from Nigeria (5-4), Uganda (3-0) and Angola (4-2) to stay bottom placed under then Head Coach Oscar Mirambo who is now the federation’s Technical Director.
The outcome did not go well with some sports sectors in the country which led to the sacking of the entire team’s technical bench on condition that they failed their job despite having ample preparations for the team to do well on its home soil.
However, the country’s lads narrowly missed a golden chance to step into the semifinals during the 2017 U-17 AFCON qualifiers which was staged in Gabon as they finished on third slot in their group B with four points.
They posted one victory (2-1) over Angola before a goalless draw against Mali and a 1-0 loss to Niger respectively which was a better performance from them at away territory.
Niger finished second with four points similar to Tanzania but the former cruised to the next stage courtesy of a head to head rule as Tanzania lost 1-0 when the two sides met in the contest.
The Gabon mission was under then Head Coach Bakari Shime who is now in charge of all national women’s football teams and is doing well there.
