Author: BENJAMIN BEN
AfricaPress-Tanzania: NATIONAL team, Taifa Stars Head Coach Etienne Ndayiragije said his side needs more time to solve goal scoring problems as they expect to face Tunisia in Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) qualifiers on November 13th, this year.
He made the remarks after seeing his charges going down 1-0 at the hands of Burundi in an international friendly match played at Benjamin Mkapa Stadium in Dar es Salaam over the weekend.
The game which fell on FIFA calendar was used as a platform to gauge Stars strength prior to their crucial away AFCON encounter against Tunisia.
Tunisia lead group J of the qualifiers with six points, while Tanzania and Libya each has garnered three, points as Equatorial Guinea sit pointless at the base of the table.
A slight deflection in the 84th minute from Taifa Stars player Abdallah Salum was enough to give Burundi a win courtesy of Saidi Ntibazonkia strike.
At a post-match briefing, Ndayiragije conceded the defeat, saying that his team is facing problems in scoring from the chances they create, promising to work hard on that area.
“As you saw, the flow of the team from the back to upfront was convincing because we have worked a lot on that but scoring goals still remains a challenge.
“We knew very well prior to the game that Burundi is a well organised team as such, I wanted to see how my players could easily play against them. I wish that in the future, we should have a long time with the team to solve numerous problems which emerged today (Sunday),” he said.
Furthermore, Ndayiragije pointed out that to some extent, what he expected to see from his team was fully accomplished and that it gave him a good challenge before the incoming big competitions.
On his part, attacking midfielder Simon Msuva said they were just not lucky to win the game basing on a number of scoring chances they created but were not tangibly utilised.
“We have lost the match but we created many chances of which, we failed to turn them into goals, while our opponents got one chance which they used perfectly to get a winning goal.
“I am sure that from the game we played, the coach has identified weaknesses which he will work on to create a good squad capable to defeat Tunisia in our upcoming away fixture,” Msuva said.
About the red card which was flashed to midfielder Jonas Mkude, forcing Stars to finish the game with ten men, Msuva said it was a normal confrontation between the two players and it happens in a game of football.
The visiting team’s Head Coach Jimmy Ndayizeye lauded his charges for the spirited effort throughout the encounter.
“In the second half, Tanzania were better than us as they succeeded to dominate us a lot but they could not manage to score.
“For today’s (Sunday) victory, we are thankful considering that Tanzania has for the past matches got the better of us,” he said.
His captain Saido Berahinho was pleased with the victory as their game plan was to win the game at all cost.
“The only different thing I saw for Tanzania team is that they have many new faces, which will require a long period of time for them to play as a team,” he said.
