Simba pitch camp in Dubai

SIMBA leave today for Dubai camp soon after their early exit from Mapinduzi Cup in Zanzibar which, however, the club officials claimed to be a fruitful tour.

The camp is aimed to drill further the squad ahead of the Premier League and CAF Champions League’s group stage assignments.

Simba have cherished this year’s Mapinduzi Cup saying it was a worthy outing as a good testing ground for the team’s rejuvenated squad despite the early exit as KVZ who lost 1-0 rue wasted scoring chances.

Simba beat KVZ 1-0 in their final group stage game at Amaan Stadium, but they failed to advance following a 1-0 loss to Mlandege in their group opener.

Making his assessment after the game with KVZ, Simba’s  coach, Juma Mgunda said even if they were out of the tournament, the two games they have played helped them to make a good assessment of their squad in this mini-transfer window.

He said one of their targets was to assess every member of the squad giving ample playing time to players who don’t feature regularly in the Premier League.

“Our mission is accomplished though we had been knocked out. We the technical bench wanted to use this tournament to make a thorough assessment of the squad by giving chances to players who don’t feature regularly in both domestic and continental level matches.

“We have seen them, we have enough of what we wanted to see from them and at this we have succeeded,” he said.

Concluding, he said they had to improve in their last game despite knowing they will never go through to the next stage.

In retrospect, the Head Coach of KVZ, Amri Said rued missing chances in their encounter against Simba as the reason to why they failed to advance to the semifinal.

KVZ saw their race to the semis dealt a blow following a 1-0 loss to Simba in their second group match of Mapinduzi Cup at Amaan Stadium on Thursday.

Both KVZ and Simba have been eliminated, Mlandege have sailed through into the semis following yesterday’s results.

KVZ under the tutelage of the former Simba defender urgently needed a victory against Simba to progress into the semis.

Speaking with ‘Daily News’ after the match, Saidi said his team squandered countless chances that could have helped the team if were properly utilised.

“We created plenty of chances, but our strikers failed to convert them into goals,” he said.

The KVZ coach, however, hailed Simba for the victory saying they played well despite missing many first XI players.

Adding, he said the experience was the game’s turning point.

“Simba are still a very strong team. Even without their first team’s players, they have more experience than our players. People should not forget that was what makes difference in the game,” he added.

Saidi spoke his word on this year’s Mapinduzi Cup format saying it is tight and that was the reason for the early elimination of some good teams including Simba.

“This year’s tournament format is not good by letting one team from every group progress to the semifinal.

He suggested having a quarter-final format that can allow two teams from a group to advance to the best-eight stage.