Yanga FC

Holders Young Africans have bounced back to the top of Mainland premiership standings table after breezing past visiting Mtibwa Sugar by 3-1 goals in their return leg match played at the National Stadium in Dar es Salaam yesterday.

Yanga have tied on 34 points with archrivals Simba but have a superior goal scoring (28), three more than second placed Simba.  Beside the similarity in number of points earned, both teams have tied at a goal difference of 15 as Yanga have conceded 13, three more than Simba.

 The Yanga-Mtibwa match kicked off with each team displaying skills in attacks as well as defending. However, the tempo of the match changed after half an hour when Mtibwa Sugar players expressed dissatisfaction over referee’s decision.

The visitors suffered a huge blow when Saidi Mkopi was sent off by the referee for an alleged abusive language.

 Hussein Javu missed a glorious opportunity after 35 minutes much to the disappointment of the visitors’ fans.

Until this point Mtibwa were playing brilliantly as Yanga hang on to defend their goal up to the half time mark.

The visitors kicked off the second half impressively and never looked like a depleted side as Yanga was disorganized at the midfield.

It was striker Hussein Javu who has been evergreen upfront as he tormented Yanga defence almost at will to forcing midfielder Athumani Idd to work above the call of duty.

Mtibwa striker Vincent Barnabas, who used to feature for Yanga in the past two seasons, had his goal disallowed under controversial circumstances midway into the second half despite a well coordinated attacks.

Yanga strikers Kenneth Assamoah and Davis Mwape were at one time looking off form.

However, Assamoah rectified his misfiring acts when his shot bounced on the crossbar before ricocheting into the net after 73 minutes.

The goal was scored against the run of play as the scorer dribbled past advancing Mtibwa goalkeeper Deo Munishi.

The visitors suffered a huge blow in the last 15 minutes when hard fighting Javu sustained injury but recovered quickly enough to return into the pitch. He did not last only to be replaced by veteran Zuberi Katwila later on

Yanga increased their tally to two when their Ugandan striker Khamis Kiiza combined well with Mwape ten minutes to time.

While Mtibwa were organising a fight back, Shamte Ali proved them wrong with a third goal five minutes to time after making use of Haruna Niyonzima’s aerial soft lobbying ball.

 Complacency counted on the part of the host side as Mtibwa Sugar striker Issa Rashid scored a consolation goal deep into stoppage time.

It was sweet revenge for the home side who has been struggling to beat the Morogoro team in most of their premiership standings.

 The league continues this weekend as the 17^th round gets underway.

Line-ups:

Yanga: Shaaban Kado,  Godfrey Taita, Stephano Mwasika, Athumani Idd, Nadir Haroub, Kenneth Assamoah, Omega Seme/Shamte Ali,  Haruna Niyonzima, Salum Telela/Juma Seif (injured37), Davis Mwape and Khamis Kiiza.

Mtibwa Sugar: Deo Munishi, Salum Swedi, Issa Rashid, Awadh Issa, Vincent Barnabas/Juma Mpakala,,  Juma Jaffer, Shaaban Nditi, Hussein Javu /Zuberi Katwila, Saidi Mkopi.