Sept.5

Rwanda v Egypt

Not all is gloom for the national side in its campaign to play at the African Nations Cup in Angola next year, that’s according to assistant coach Eric Nshimiyimana.

The former APR and Rwandan international midfielder said that people should not read much in to the 1-2 loss to Taifa Stars of Tanzania because the coach, Branko Tucak was simply trying to gauge the performance of some new players in the team.

"There was a lot of uproar after losing to Tanzania, but that should not be the case, because as everyone saw, the team was composed of new faces, we were trying to gauge the performance of some them.

"When you change the team like that, it impacts on the rthym of their play, so that is why the Tanzanian team seemed comfortable on the ball.

That (Tanzania) team has been playing together for a considerable period of time,” noted Tucak’s assistant.

Amavubi were missing key players including; team captain Olivier Karenkezi, Jean Baptiste Mugiraneza, Mbuya Twite, Labama Bogota, Boubakary Saddou and Patrick Mafisango.

With that list, Nshimiyimana added, "So Amavubi fans should not worry about the team’s chances of qualifying for the African Nations Cup, we’re still on course.”

Ends