Kenya/Rwanda: Tusker Warned

RWANDESE side APR jetted into the country yesterday with a promise upset Tusker in the CAF Champion League match.

CECAFA Senior Challenge Cup leading scorer Olivia Karekezi, a subject of intense transfer inquiry from Gor Mahia, will lead the eleven times Rwandese champions. Kerekezi will use his six-year experience of playing in the paid ranks in Sweden to ensure fresh start for APR.

The attacking midfielder featured for Helsingborgs IF, scoring five goals in 18 matches, during the 2005 season. In 2006, he scored 11 goals for Helsingborg and thereby becoming their top scorer in Allsvenskan.

Also arriving with the team is Uganda Cranes midfielder Dan Wagaluka. Leading the 25-man contingent will be Dutch-born coach Ernie Brandts. APR otherwise known as ‘Armee Patriotique Rwandaise’ is arriving in Nairobi reeling from a 3-2 shock loss to Rwanda Police in league match staged at the Amahoro Stadium in Kigali.

APR are lying second in the Rwanda’s Primier League with 24 points, three points behind table leaders Police while Rayon Sports are third with 22 points.

Uganda referees led by Dennis Batte assisted by Hussein Bugembe, Ngovi Musa and Egyptian match commissar Essam Siam are expected to arrive in Nairobi on Friday. Tickets for the match will go for Sh400(main VIP stand) and Sh200 for terraces.

APR players-Jean Luc Ndayishimiye, Habib Kavuma, Jean Bosco Ndaboyisibo, Donatien Tuyisenge, Alex de Avila Peixoto, Ernest Kwizera, Jean Baptiste Mugiraneza and Papy Faty. Others are-Saint Preux Leonel, Dan Wagaluka, Olivier Karekezi, Kipson Atuheire, Ismail Nshutiyamagara, Logbo Sery, Didier Landry, Mbuyu Twite, Ndikumana Selemani, Jean Claude Ndoli and Ngoma Heriman.

Elsewhere, triple African Footballer of the Year award winner Abedi ‘Pele’ Ayew of Ghana turns coach this weekend when Nania compete in the Orange CAF Confederation Cup. It will be unchartered territory for Pele and his second division side when they host Sequence FC of Guinea in the first leg of a first round tie in the second-tier continental competition.

Nania defied the odds to win the Ghana FA Cup last season, defeating Asante Kotoko 1-0 in extra time during the final after eliminating champions Berekum Chelsea at the penultimate stage. “Winning the Cup was a great achievement,” said the African star of two decades ago, whose playing career included spells at Niort, Mulhouse, Marseille, Lille and Lyon in France, Torino in Italy and 1860 Munich in Germany. “We have conquered Ghana so now let us try and conquer Africa. This is a fresh challenge for everyone at the club. Our task is to prepare physically, mentally and tactically.”

Sequence debuted in the competition last year and was not disgraced, forcing a 1-1 draw at two-time CAF titlists Africa Sports of Ivory Coast after a narrow home defeat. Ghana dominated the first Confederation Cup successor to the African Cup Winners Cup and CAF Cup competitions-with Hearts of Oak defeating bitter rivals Kotoko on penalties after both legs of the 2004 final were drawn. But no club from the West African nation has come close to matching that feat while Guinean entrants have been equally unsuccessful in a Cup won by Moghreb Fes of Morocco last year.