Yanga FC

Holders Young Africans host visiting Mtibwa Sugar in the return leg tie of the Mainland soccer premiership at the National Stadium in Dare s Salaam today.

Both teams need to post victory and boost title chances as the second half of the season has been left with ten rounds to play.

The teams battled to a 1-1 draw during their first leg meeting played at the Jamhuri Stadium in Morogoro in a riot marred encounter on September 7.

Mtibwa travel to Dar es Salaam with a background of psychological turmoil having lost two of their previous matches to stuck at the fifth position of the standings table.

Yanga kick off the game this afternoon in comparatively buoyant mood following a morale booster 3-1 fight-back win over JKT Ruvu at the same venue on January 28.

A win for Mtibwa Sugar would still keep the team at the same position of the standings table but their opponents have a different objective.

Yanga would like to collect the three allotted points and more than two goals so as to edge leaders and top rated rivals Simba.

Relegated to the third spot of the standings table by Azam FC over the weekend, Yanga are most likely to kick off the game aggressively.

The visitors, who replaced their coach Mecky Maxime following dismal performance after the start of the second half of the season, certainly would like to see positive changes in terms of performance.

The title race, same as fight-back to avoid relegation, has now been set to be wide open due to cluster in points both at the top and bottom part of the standings table.

Yanga, who are three points adrift of the leaders Simba, would like to close up the gap and seek to stay at the ceiling of the table as a move to stage a title retention bid.

The holders got a huge title boost following Simba’s slip-up at the hands of the bottom placed Villa Squad in the league’s biggest ever upset for the season.

Simba squandered an opportunity to go six points clear at the top of the standings after the terrible fluff that kept them at the risk of losing the pilot seat.

The Yanga-Mtibwa match is the final for the 16^th round matches ahead of the subsequent round that kicks off on Saturday and wind up on Sunday, save for a left over game between Toto Africa and visiting Africa Lyon.