Taifa Stars

Tanzania national soccer team, the Taifa Stars, are expected to arrive from Abidjan this morning where they played the first leg of the 2014 World Cup qualifier tie against Cote d’Ivoire last Saturday.

The team will straight forward join the camp at the Karume Memorial Stadium as they gear up for the second qualifier tie at home to Gambia  in Dar es Salaam this weekend.

Stars lost to Cote d’Ivoire by 2-0 goals to highlight a heavy workload for the Tanzania team in the remaining five matches, two on foreign soil.
 
The Danish coach Kim Poulsen has already set focus on the forthcoming match against Gambia which Stars should win to keep qualification hopes on track.

“We have a job to rebuild the team and the next game against Gambia is more important than a postmortem on how we lost to Cote d’Ivoire,” said the coach.

The coach hailed his players for their performance in Abidjan though he admitted that the host side scored easy goals to please their home fans and keep qualification bid on track.

The match against Gambia puts Stars on a knife edge as the teams have never met before in football history.

Gambia drew goalless at home to Morocco to heralds how good the West African side that geographically borders Senegal is.

While Gambia will be in Dar, Cote d’Ivoire meet Morocco in another group match for the day two of the qualifiers,

The best option for Stars to revive qualification hope is to post a win at home and Gambia must be the first casualties.

The group is relatively tough and Stars are rank outsiders despite huge optimism over excelling in the remaining five matches of the qualifiers.

Never in the past had Stars made a progression to win the World Cup qualifier berth and Morocco is the team the Tanzanian side lost a total of six points, during the African Nations Cup qualifiers for the championship staged in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea last February.

The Danish coach, who took over from namesake Jan, is certainly under pressure to please the home fans and the match against Gambia is a potential challenge for him to justify his credentials as a competent and capable to deliver.