The Burundian tactician believes local strikers are not doing enough to compete with foreigners in scoring goals
Tanzania coach Etienne Ndayiragije has admitted he is worried at the level of local-based strikers who are not scoring goals for their respective teams in the Mainland Premier League.
The Taifa Stars coach has revealed the trend of foreign strikers scoring goals in the league ahead of domestic strikers is worrying because it will affect the performance of the national team.
The Burundian tactician gave an example of Saturday’s Simba SC game which saw them hammer JKT Tanzania 4-0 with all goals coming from foreign players – Meddie Kagere (2), Chris Mugali, and Luis Miquissone.
“Over the weekend, all three big teams in the country played and won. For instance, Simba won four goals, and all the goals were netted by foreign-based players like Meddie Kagere who scored twice, Chris Mugalu and Louis Miquissone,” Ndayiragije told Daily News.
“Young Africans (Yanga) also won 3-0 and all the goals were scored by imported players who are Carlinho Fernandes ‘Carlinhos’, Haruna Niyonzima, and Yacouba Sogne, the same applied to Azam FC who won 4-2. As such, we really have scoring problems when it comes to the national team level.”
Ndayiragije has, however, welcomed the team’s friendly against Burundi saying it will help to give his side a good challenge ahead of the major approaching contests such as the Africa Cup of Nations and African Nations Championship (Chan).
“The current Burundi squad has got almost 13 players who trade their professional football outside the country, and some of them will be making their debut playing in the Burundi team this Sunday,” Ndayigarije continued.
“Some of them play in Portugal, Norway, Sweden, Belgium, Morocco and Turkey and some of them were born there, but because Burundi accepts dual citizenship, they have been called to play in this friendly encounter.
“It was really difficult to get a friendly match during this Covid-19 period, but many thanks should go to the Tanzania Football Federation (TFF) for doing their utmost to get one.
“At first, we found an away friendly match against Togo, which was supposed to be played in Tunisia but we declined because it seems that the person who arranged this game is an agent of Tunisia, hence he wanted to study us before we meet them in Afcon qualifiers next month.
“I know it was a tactical move from him to see how we play. But, if you can see from our Afcon Group J, we have three points, the same as Libya, while Tunisia have six points, hence mathematically, whoever is in our group and reaches at least nine or ten points, will earn qualification.
“As such, our two games against Tunisia will be very important for us because we at least need to get four points from the two-legged matches against them, to be in a better position to qualify.
“If we can claim a draw away and win our reverse match at home, we will have seven points meaning that our game against Libya will be a final to us since a draw or victory will enable us to sail through.”
The friendly against Burundi will be staged at the Benjamin Mkapa Stadium on October 11 (Sunday) and already professional players named in the squad led by captain Mbwana Samatta have reported to camp.
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