U-17 team in Madagascar ahead of tie
What you need to know:
The national Under-17 soccer team, Serengeti Boys, will now leave the country on July 26 for a 10-day training camp in Madagascar ahead of their African Youth Championship (ARC) second round qualifier against South Africa.
Dar es Salaam. The national Under-17 soccer team, Serengeti Boys, will now leave the country on July 26 for a 10-day training camp in Madagascar ahead of their African Youth Championship (ARC) second round qualifier against South Africa.
Serengeti Boys booked a date with South Africa’s Amajimbos after seeing off Seychelles on a 9-0 goal aggregate few weeks ago.
Tanzania Football Federation (TFF) information officer Alfred Lucas told The Citizen yesterday that while in South Africa, the team will also play a few build-up matches aiming at sharpening their skills ahead of the match.
Lucas said the technical bench proposed that the team camps in a country where the weather is similar to that of South Africa, hence the choice of Madagascar.
“They will be there for 10 days before flying to South Africa where they will battle their hosts in the first leg of the second round match. We are confident that the camp will help them in many ways, we planned to leave the country on July 23, but we postponed to the new date due to unavoidable reasons,” said Lucas.
Serengeti Boys face a tricky test against their South African opponents between August 5 and 7. They will later host Amajimbos at the Azam Complex on August 14.
South Africa beat Serengeti Boys during the qualifiers for the 2015 AYC on a 4-0 goal aggregate.
The overall winner of the two-legged match will face the winner between Namibia and Congo-Brazzaville. South Africa had an easy ride into the second round following the withdrawal of their opponents, while Namibia eliminated Botswana on 3-2 on aggregate.
Recently, Serengeti Boys head coach Bakari Shime said he was targeting nothing less than the final of the 2017 AYC.
“We have a good team that can spring some surprises on the continent. We had a praiseworthy participation at the AIIF Cup and now the boys have shown what they can do in the AYC qualifiers,” said Shime.
“We now have to prepare properly in order to eliminate South Africa. We have the quality to send them crashing out even though this will be the trickiest assignment,” he added.
