NATIONAL Under-16 football team launched their campaign in the tri-nation tournament in a positive note after thrashing Liberia 3-0 at the Uhuru Stadium in Dar es Salaam on Tuesday.
The victory for would be Serengeti Boys, was achieved within first 45 minutes courtesy of goals scored by Omar Abbas, Abdulrazak Salum and Ladaki Juma.
It was a perfect start for the home boys as they took control of the game, no wonder they scored the opener just five minutes from the kick off through Abbas.
They continued to push forward and netted the second in the 19th minute through Salum before Juma extended the lead in the 37th minute.
After the break, the hosts maintained pressure but Liberia slightly improved and made several forays upfront but Tanzania looked the side more likely to score.
However, both sides wasted several clear cut opportunities to score.
The three-day special football competition organised by the Tanzania Football Federation (TFF) is expected to end on Saturday. It has brought together three U-16 national teams from Liberia, Malawi and the host Tanzania.
On Thursday, Liberia will face Malawi while the home team will wrap up their mission on Saturday by taking on Malawi with all games timed to begin at 9:00 am.
According to the TFF Media and Communication Officer, Clifford Ndimbo, the contest has been arranged to provide a preparation platform for the country’s U-17 team ahead of their busy schedule in the qualifiers of 2021 U-17 African Cup of the Nations (AFCON) whose finals will be played in Cameroon.
“We strongly believe that our team will receive good preparation games from the two invited national teams as we want to go further during the next year’s edition,” said Ndimbo.
“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.
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 lost to 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.
