Taifa Stars

An international friendly between Taifa Stars and visiting Democratic Republic of Congo to be played at the National Stadium in Dar es Salaam on Thursday is expected to kick off from 17:00 hours.

Tanzania Football Federation’s information officer Boniface Wambura attributed the late kick off on grounds, among other, of allowing big turn up of spectators.

Most of the fans will be caught in offices had the midweek fixture be set up on the regular conventional timings.

Wambura said the lowest entry fee has been set up at 2,000/- for those spectators who would like to cover stands with blue and green coloured seats. Other entry fees range from 5,000/- to 15,000 as the highest for the VIP A stand.

Wambura said the host team’s players have opened an ad hoc camp at the Karume Memorial Stadium to gear up for the Thursday’s friendly.

The visitors from DR Congo are expected to jet in today while their coach Frenchman Claude Le Roy is already in Dar es Salaam since last Saturday.

Both DRC and Taifa Stars are playing the friendly as a final build up in their opening legs of the African Nations Cup qualifiers against Seychelles and Mozambique, respectively. The teams play their qualifiers on this weekend but the DRC side still has to travel all the way to the Indian Ocean Island.

Stars coach Jan Poulsen, who announced his provisional line up last Friday, will be looking for his second attempt in the Nations Cup qualifier since he took over from Brazilian Marcio Maximo in August 2010.

Poulsen had his first attempt to lead the team into the just ended finals in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea hit a rock bottom after notching the only victory at home over Central Africa Republic out of the six home and away qualifier series.

Most of the domestic fans are increasingly losing confidence with the Danish trainer as a result of the team’s dismal performance despite leading the Mainland team into historic Challenge Cup victory four months after his arrival.