ATRACO head Coach Sam Timbe has said restated that the taxi-men club is still in race for this year’s national football league despite losing to arch-rivals APR on Wednesday at Amahoro stadium.

The two-Cecafa club champion coach told Times Sport yesterday that Atraco’s 1-3 loss to APR mid this week is like any other league fixture played this season thus no reason for alarm.

"A football league is like a marathon race and to win the race doesn’t mean that you lead all the way from the start until you cross the finish line.”

"My team suffered from poor defence set backs and the strikers too were not at their best but I still hope for the best in the next matches,” Timbe said, adding that both Hamis Kitagenda and Joseph Kabagambe were rested not to exceed the five foreign players limit imposed on all the national league clubs while Peter Kagabo has had a frustrating season, a feat which has seen him fail to find the net in the seven matches played so far.

The Nine-time league champions, APR earned a much needed victory over defending champions in Wednesday’s match to take the summit of the national league for the first time this season.

Goals from skipper Mbuyu Twite (56), Jouolu Bokungu (76) and Haruna Niyonzima (80) sank Atraco who only managed to pull a late minute superb consolation goal through Ugandan import Johnson Bagoole.

The rout, took APR to 17 points as Atraco stayed on 15 points. 

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