AfricaPress-Tanzania: LAST year’s Cosafa U-20 champions Twiga Stars are hoping to strike again in the annual southern region tourney which will take place in South Africa from November 3rd to 14th this year.
Twiga Stars and the National U-17 Women team have been engaged in long training sessions ahead of this year’s events and players of the both teams are hopeful to strike gold in their mission.
The U-17 team skipper Noella Luhalu told the ‘africa-press’ that they want to bring the throne to Tanzania as they did their sisters of the U-20 team.
“Our coaches have drilled us intensively to the extent that we feel we are tailor-made for the tournament. We want to come back with Cosafa Cup,” she said.
The same promise was made by the Twiga Stars captain, Amina Bilal said they were sure to repeat what they did last year though they played as an invited team.
Twiga Stars who are pooled in a group C, will open their Cosafa Cup campaign against Zimbabwe on November 4th at Wolfson stadium, while the U-17 team will play against Comoro in the same day.
Speaking about the teams’ preparations, the head coach Bakari Shime said all players are well drilled and in a good shape for the two tournaments.
“They are well prepared and fit to face the tournaments challenges. At the moment we are just doing final touches on certain areas of physical and psychological drill,” he said.
Both Twiga Stars and the U-17 teams are going to Cosafa Cup as invited teams. They are supposed to have arrived in South Africa by October 31st this year.
Twiga Stars who are the U-20 championship are this time going there again as the defending champions.
Tanzania won the maiden Cosafa U-20 Women’s Cup after defeating Zambia 2-1 in the final at the Wolfson Stadium.
To reach the final, Tanzania stunned hosts South Africa 2-0, while Zambia edged Zimbabwe 1-0 in the semi-finals.
The history-chasing Twiga Stars started on the front foot as Opa Clement gave them the lead after 24 minutes of action in Port Elizabeth before Protasia Mbunda netting the winner in the late minutes.
Loveness Malunga struck 11 minutes after the restart of the match to bring the Shepolopolo back on level terms.
