Etincelles target strong start

Today Etincelles vs Ocean Boys 12:55 SS3Simba vs Vital’ O 14:50 SS3 SundayAPR vs PortsYanga vs El-Mereikh Etincelles coach Abdul Bizimana is confident about his team’s chance of not only winning their opening tie against Ocean Boys of Zanzibar this afternoon but also do well in the Cecafa/Kagame Cup tournament. Debutants, Etincelles arrived in Dar-es salaam yesterday afternoon and had a light training session at the Benjamin Mkapa national stadium. However, Bizimana is confident of a win this afternoon, “The players want to prove their worthy and show that they can compete at a regional level. We are confident of a win tomorrow [today],” the former Mukura coach told this paper yesterday by phone from Dar es Salaam. After today’s opening game Etincelles, who in the same group as Tanzanian giants Simba Fc, will be next in action on Tuesday when they take on Vita O of Burundi. Meanwhile, Rwanda’s other representative and defending champion APR kick off the defense of their title against Ports of Djibouti. The Primus national league champions are in the same group with Ulinzi of Kenya, whom the face on Wednesday and Ethiopia’s St.George. APR and St.George contested last year’s final and the former won 2-1. A total of 12 teams from Uganda, Kenya, Somalia, Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda, Djibouti and Zanzibar will compete in the two-week event that will be jointly held in Dar-es-Salaam and Morogoro. On top of President Kagame’s annual sponsorship package of ($60,000), Tanzania Breweries Limited through their Castle Lager brand, have injected $100,000 in the tournament. Ends

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Etincelles target strong start