Why Victory a Must for Under 23 Soccer Team

The Citizen (Dar es Salaam)

30 April 2011

analysis

The National Stadium in Dar es Salaam will be the place to be for soccer lovers and hordes of other patriots this afternoon, when the Under-23 national soccer team does battle with Uganda. All will be hoping that the junior Stars will come out in full force to silence their adversaries. We have no reason to doubt their ability to do just that.

This team has talented players, who not long ago, knocked their counterparts from one of Africa’s leading soccer playing nations, Cameroon, out of the race to the Olympics slot. The best assurance we can give them is that millions of their countrymen and women will be rooting for them. But even more important, they will be playing at home before a partisan crowd that will be cheering them to victory.

It has been a long wait, but we believe that Tanzania is ready again to feature in a top international competition. And it won’t matter that only a few of the fans at the stadium today, remember or had a chance to follow the country’s performance in 1980, when Taifa Stars romped into the Africa Cup of Nations finals in Lagos.

Since then, glory as eluded Taifa Stars despite spirited efforts over the years. The youngsters have a great opportunity to restore that past glory by overturning the deficit from the first leg in Kampala with an emphatic victory. Our boys have a tough challenge in this crucial return leg match of the All-Africa Games qualifier, but it is not entirely impossible to upset the applecart. The Kobs won 2-1 in the first leg match two weeks ago, with the vital away goal, the junior Stars can still make it.

They just need a goal to nil to assure themselves of a place in the final round of the All Africa Games in Maputo in September and a possible slot in the 2012 London Olympics. The fans must come out and fill the 60,000-seater stadium this afternoon to help the homeboys turn the tables on the Ugandans.

AllAfrica – All the Time