Today’s fixtures

Semi-final

Ethiopia vs Ivory Coast 2pm
Tanzania vs Uganda 4pm

AMAVUBI head coach Sellas Tetteh has blamed his side‘s poor finishing for their 1-0 defeat in Wednesday’s quarter-final against this year’s Senior Challenge Cup hosts Tanzania.

Dady Birori, Peter Kagabo, Jean Baptist Mugiraneza a.k.a Migi and - most spectacularly – Jean Claude Iranzi were all guilty of misses before Kilimanjaro Stars’ captain Shadrack Nsajigwa scored from the spot kick 17 minutes into the second half.

"Football is very strange. We played fantastic football in the first half but if you don‘t score, sometimes you can lose these games,” said Tetteh in a post match interview.
”We had the Birori chance, but we also had three or four other opportunities.”

The Ghanaian coach cut a frustrated figure on the touchline during the second half of the match at the national stadium in Dar es Salaam, as the visitors outmuscled their more illustrious opponents before Nsajigwa’s winner following a professional foul by Clement Mutunzi on Tanzanian striker John Bocco.

The visitors had created several openings in the first half, not least when left winger Iranzi shot straight at the goalkeeper from 12 yards after beating off two defenders.
”I am disappointed because we wanted to win this game,” added Tetteh.

Meanwhile, Tetteh‘s Tanzanian counterpart Jan Poulsen was delighted by the way his team bounced back after the break.

”It was a great performance. Every one of them stuck at it and did their jobs properly. Of course, we rode our luck a little bit with the Claude miss - I don‘t think he will ever miss a chance like that again - but we are due some.”

However, Poulsen‘s joy could be short-lived when his side take on a much more direct side in Uganda Cranes this afternoon (4pm).

The defending champions, who are chasing for a third successive title and 12th overall, reached the last four after edging Zanzibar on penalties.

The first semi-final pits Ethiopia against Ivory Coast; the only surviving guest side in the tournament. Both Zambia and Malawi were ejected at the quarter-final stage.

Ends