Amavubi midfielder Haruna Niyonzima insists that he still has the energy to play his best football at a professional level.
The Rwanda international left Rwanda Premier League side, AS Kigali after he agreed to join Libyan topflight club Al Ta’awon Sports on a one-year deal.
There have been persistent questions that Niyonzima’s age has affected his performance over the past few years but the midfielder, who is set to make his debut at the club in January, remains confident that he can still play top level football and is ready to respond to doubters on the pitch.
"I am still the one you know. I can still play top level football as I did in my past clubs and I hope to score more goals and provide assists,” 33-year-old told Times Sport.
"You have to wait and see, and hopefully you will be able to see the real me,” he added.
Niyonzima has been in fine form so far this season as he helped AS Kigali finish the first round of Rwanda Premier League at the top of the table with 30 points. He now shifts focus on getting to quickly adapt to his new team so he can help them push for a league title this season.
"I think I have the ability to adapt. It’s up to me to prove that I’m capable of playing at the highest level. If I hadn’t felt capable of taking on this pressure, I’d be somewhere else,” he noted
Some may be suggesting that he is old and should retire from football, Niyonzima insisted that, at 33, he is ‘still strong’ and hence has no plan to retire from international football yet.
"I am just enjoying my playing career and I am going outside to help my new club to win more games, I wish to achieve the best. I feel happy and I want to keep on playing and winning games, to score goals, to enjoy myself. This is my motivation behind my move outside again,” she said.
Niyonzima started his football career with Etincelles before he was spotted and signed by Rayon Sports in 2006. He joined rivals APR the following year where he played for three-and-a-half years prior to his 2011 move to Yanga in 2011.
He won a number of titles with the military side including the 2010 CECAFA Kagame Cup.
Regarded as one of the most decorated players in the region, the veteran made history in June 2019 as he became the first player to win the Tanzania Premier League title five consecutive seasons, having won it three times in a row with Yanga, between 2015 and 2017, before helping Simba to lift the title twice during the 2017/2018 and 2018/2019 seasons.
Niyonzima made his senior international debut for Rwanda in 2006 is so far Rwanda’s most-capped player with 105 appearances, scoring six times in the process.