With zeal, Wydad, Rivers can face doom too

THEY say nothing in this world is impossible as long as one puts strong determination to accomplish the task in hand. This is what encourages Simba and Young Africans to clear their quarterfinal hurdles against Wydad Casablanca and Rivers United.

The two envoys are just a few miles away from a spectacular record of cruising into the semifinals of CAF Champions League and CAF Confederation Cup only if they bundle Wydad and Rivers United out.

Simba, who welcome Wydad Casablanca at Benjamin Mkapa Stadium in Dar es Salaam tomorrow, are aware that the best possible way to make it to the last four of the Champions League is to win at home and at least grind out a draw in the away game.

Practically, the fixture is tough for both sides as they are facing each other for the first time hence none of them is fully aware of the opponents despite gathering some details through media platforms on how they play.

This automatically makes the fixture interesting to watch and there is a big anticipation from the Tanzanian football fraternity that Simba can get the better of the Moroccan side prior to the away secondleg match in Morocco next week.

In this year’s Champions League campaign, the Msimbazi Street Reds have been paired against two Moroccan giants in name of Raja Casablanca in the group stage and now Wydad Casablanca in the quarterfinals.

They lost to Raja Casablanca in both home and away matches in the group stage but the defeat should be taken positively and help to motivate the team to bounce back and beat the Moroccan side.

The key here is confidence. Most likely after losing twice to Raja Casablanca their confidence suffered. However this is the team that has a rich history of pulling away wins against African giants when they are least expected. They have that hunger this time around and the ability to rewrite the history once again.

To be a big team, you must face big clubs with remarkable achievements and be able to upset them, in this case, Simba have reached at the mature stage to go head to head against any club on the continent. If they managed to silence Egyptian giants Al Ahly at the same 60,000-capacity venue in the same competition, why should not Wydad surrender?

In tomorrow’s clash, Simba need maximum support in order to gather the necessary courage to stun the defending champions and create a path to the semis.

However, the country’s envoys netted 10 goals in six group stage games of the Champions League against 7 goals converted by Wydad Casablanca in six fixtures of the last-16.

This gives the Reds an advantage to do well over the Moroccan giants who just conceded one goal in the group stages against seven goals left passed by the Msimbazi streetbased outfits. Here, it means the clash is between a good attacking team (Simba) versus a brilliant defensive counterpart (Wydad Casablanca) with the two sides gearing up to showcase a massive showdown to football fans.

Likewise, Simba are on record to register a big victory in a single champions league group stage match when they hammered Horoya 7-0 at the 60,000-capacity arena in the city.

As such, it remains a puzzle if they will be able to stop the champions league holders from claiming maximum points in their first match of the quarterfinals.

Similarly, Yanga have another tense match against Rivers United in a crucial CAF Confederation Cup quarterfinal duel at Godswill Akipabio Stadium in Nigeria on Sunday.

It is also a very difficult match but for Yanga to reach this far, they had to equally overcome tough teams like US Monastir, TP Mazembe, and Real Bamako which provided massive resistance as they too wanted to seal qualification.

Facing the Nigerian side should simply be a motivation for the Jangwani-based club so that they can excel to attain their set-up objectives of stepping into the semifinals for the first time in the club’s history.