TANZANIAN Mbwana Samatta will be in action today as his Aston Villa side host Tottenham Hotspurs in the English Premier League (EPL) clash at Villa Park.
It will be the second match for Samatta in EPL after playing his debut match against Bournemouth in which they lost 2-1 despite recording 61 per cent ball possession against 39 percent posted by Bournemouth.
Samatta scored the only goal for his side on the day in the 70th minute but it was too little to save his new team which is fighting hard to avoid relegation as they currently sit 17th on the EPL table with 25 points after 25 games.
The other interesting part of today’s game is the meeting between John Terry, who is Aston Villa Assistant Coach and his former boss, Jose Mourinho, who together had a successful stay at Chelsea winning several titles with the Blues.
As usual, all eyes from Tanzanians around the world will be glued to their Television sets to see how their captain is going to perform, knowing exactly that if he scores, it will be a great gift to them.
After today’s match, Aston Villa will visit Southampton at St Mary’s Stadium on Saturday for yet another hot EPL fixture which will again attract attention from many Tanzanians.
However, Samatta is going to make another big history of his playing career on March 1st this year when his team will face Manchester City in the Carabao Cup final at Wembley Stadium.
It will be his first time to exchange tackles with Man City players at the giant Wembley Stadium, which has sitting capacity of 90,000 fans.
Recently, Taifa Stars Head Coach, Etienne Ndayiragije said he expect to see much from his skipper Samatta following his switch to play in the EPL.
“He has managed to get a good challenge which will make him the best because when you move from a low standard to upper level, you definitely grow and become better due to new challenges you are exposed to,” he said.
He added that when Samatta was still playing in the Belgium league, he excelled a lot to the extent that he was once the league’s top goal scorer, a development he said gives him (Samatta) assurance to do better in EPL.
“When you get a chance to work at a certain place, do not feel content but always be eager to look for challenges somewhere else since in such doing, you learn new things,” Ndayiragije noted.
