Twiga Stars face tough Nambia in Afcon duel

Dar es Salaam. The national women’s soccer team, Twiga Stars, today confront Namibia in the Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) qualifier at the Benjamin Mkapa Stadium.

The match has been scheduled to start from 4pm and is expected to be tough as Twiga Stars will need victory to get an easy job in their return leg scheduled to be held in Windhoek in one week’s time.

The match will be officiated by Ethiopian referees. These are Lidya Abebe , who is to be the centre referee, and will be assisted by Woinshet Kassaye and Birtukan Mamo.

The game’s reserve referee is Monedm Medab, while the referee assessor will be Catherine Constance from Uganda. The match commissioner is Palmira Pedro Francisco from Mozambique while Tanzanian Violeth Lupondo is the ‘Covid-19 officer.’

Twiga Stars head coach Bakari Shime said all his players are in good shape ahead of the encounter and he call on all fellow Tanzanians to support the team.

The tactician said they do not underestimate their opponents and that they are taking the encounter very seriously.

“We are satisfied with our preparations for the match, my players are ready for the battle and have promised to fight till the last drop of their sweat, we want to qualify for the finals,” said Shime.

Shime also said that his players have not got an enough rest after winning the just-ended Cosafa Women’s Championship in South Africa. However, he has included some players who featured in the U-20 national women’s team (The Tanzanite) to create a strong squad.

“We are really facing tough assignments in the continental championship. However, we are happy to have achieved successes by both senior women’s teams including The Tanzanite (U-20) players who eliminated Eritrea from the World Cup qualifiers.

Our focus is on eliminating the Namibian side and qualify for the next round. We are really serious about this as we target to qualify for the Afcon finals,” said Shime.

Stressing that they do not underestimate any of the teams in the competition, he said this is only because football is unpredictable.

“If we eliminate Namibia, we will face either Malawi or Zambia, with whom we played in the just-ended Cosafa Women’s Championship. We eliminated Zambia in the semifinal through penalties - and, later, won 1-0 over Malawi in the final,” he said, adding that all his players are in high morale ahead of the encounter, in which they have promised to do their best. Namibia have camped in Gqeberha since their elimination from the Cosafa Women’s championships early October and will be back in Johannesburg for their second leg match on October 23.

Coach Woody Jacobs has included foreign based players Zenatha Coleman (Spain) and Veweziua Kotjipati ( Germany) ahead of today’s clash.The aggregate winner will advance to the second and final round of the qualifiers. The 2022 Africa Women Cup of Nations will be the 12th edition of the tournament that will be hosted by Morocco from July 2 to 23 next year.