Nigeria’s untested Oliseh and his new flock of birds will be coming into a hornets nest on Saturday and will face a reinvigorated Taifa Stars bent on upsetting the Apple cart in Group G
Dar es Salaam. Taifa Stars captain Nadir Haroub says his team has laid all the groundwork for a great game against the visiting Nigeria and has appealed for massive support from home fans.
The Yanga centre-back, who is locally likened with Fabio Cannavaro, told The Citizen that his teammates were in great shape with the exception of holding midfielder Abdi Banda, who has been ruled out of the Saturday game after failing to shake off his injury.
The no nonsense defender, who has captained the team for a long spell, said interim coach Boniface Mkwasa has ironed out all existing wrinkles on the team.
These include the poor finishing against Libya by Ibrahim Ajibu, Simon Msuva and Rashid Mandawa, and the absolutely disastrous goal keeping by Said Mohamed that resulted in gifting the North Africans the winner in their 2-1 loss.
Nevertheless, the game which was played at the Green Park Hotel ground in Kartepe, Turkey, according to Cannavaro, has fostered a new team spirit within the ranks of the Tanzanians and they now still believe Gabon 2017 is within their grasp despite being flattened by Egypt 3-0 in Cairo on match-day one.
They know to do this though that a win is a must and so do their die-hard fans that are expected to be in full voice and number up to 60,000 at the National Stadium, which looks deceptively small from afar but is the 11th largest in all of Africa.
Stars, who jetted into the country yesterday from Turkey, continued with training and were further buoyed with the folding in of the dangerous duo from TP Mazembe; Mbwana Samata and Thomas Ulimwengu, as well as the South African based Mrisho Ngasa.
Nigeria’s untested Oliseh and his new flock of birds will be coming into a hornets nest on Saturday and will face a reinvigorated Taifa Stars bent on upsetting the Apple cart in Group G. The delegation of Super Eagles to Saturday’s 2017 Africa Cup of Nations qualifying match against Stars will arrive in Dar es Salaam tonight. Arrival at the Julius Nyerere International Airport is expected to at 10pm.
According to the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), the Eagles’ delegation will be made up of 23 players, technical officials, a number of members of NFF executive committee and management, NFF Staff, some representatives of the media, football stakeholders and members of the Nigeria Football Supporters Club. Both countries have not met at senior level since December 1980, but there have been clashes at junior level, and an African Women Championship qualifying fixture, in recent years.
