Young Africans lost 2-1 in the first leg encounter held at the National Stadium two weeks ago to make the Botswana side to qualify into the group stage for the first time in history.
Dar es Salaam. Mainland Tanzania champions Young Africans have been eliminated in the African Champions League following the barren draw against Botswana’s Township Rollers.
Young Africans lost 2-1 in the first leg encounter held at the National Stadium two weeks ago to make the Botswana side to qualify into the group stage for the first time in history.
The Jangwani giants now are focusing the African Football governing body (Caf) Confederation Cup against the teams that qualified into the second round of the competitions.
This is the second time for Young Africans to feature in the Confederation Cup after failing to qualify in the group stage of the African Champions League.
In 2016, Young Africans also failed to qualify into the league, but featured in the Confederation Cup group stage after eliminating Angola’s Sagrada Esperanca by 2-1 goal aggregates.
Young Africans played well yesterday unlike in the first encounter. They stopped Township Rollers to score in the well-attended encounter.
Young Africans countered all attacks in the match which saw Andrew Vincent return in the squad after being out for more than a month.
Young Africans changed the line-up by introducing Juma Abdul, Thabani Kamusoko, Yusuph Mhilu and Yuthe Rostand, who made a tremendous job.
The team made attacks. Obrey Chirwa shot wide in the 88th minute following a good cross from Juma Mahadhi.
Defenders and the goalkeeper stopped Rollers from scoring.
Kelvin Yondani, Juma Abdul, Said Juma, Andrew Vincent and Gadiel Michael strove to block the Botswana side.
The team captain Nadir “Cannavaro” Haroub said the poor results in the first leg made them not to qualify into the group stage as they made in 1998.
The team played against giants’ teams like Asc Mimosas (Cote d’Ivoire), Maning Rangers (South Africa) and Raja Casablanca of Morocco which were in group B. Group comprised Dynamos (Zimbabwe), Accra Hearts of Oak (Ghana), Etoile Du Sahel (Tunisia) and Eagle Cement of Nigeria.
The 2018 Caf Confederation Cup (officially the 2018 Total Caf Confederation Cup for sponsorship reasons) is the 15th edition of the Caf Confederation Cup, Africa’s secondary club football competition organized by the Confederation of African Football (Caf).
The winners of the 2018 CAF Confederation Cup will earn the right to play against the winners of the 2018 Caf Champions League in the 2019 Caf Super Cup.
TP Mazembe are the two-time defending champions, but as they have qualified for the 2018 Caf Champions League and reached the group stage, they will not be able to defend their title.
