Yanga, Mafunzo open Mapinduzi Cup curtain

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Initially, the tournament was supposed to get underway yesterday but the local organizing committee extended the kick-off of the annual tournament by 24 hours to pave way for Mainland giants Simba to honour their Vodacom Premier League (VPL) match against Ndanda FC at the Nangwanda Sijaona Stadium in Mtwara on Friday.
Simba won 1-0. A fixture between Yanga and Mafunzo will kick off at 04:15 pm at the Amani Stadium, which is the venue for all matches.
The match will be graced by the Zanzibar Deputy Minister for Communication and Infrastructure, Issa Haji Gavu. Eight teams will compete for the title and the Zanzibar Football Association (ZFA) Secretary; Hashim Salum said all necessary preparations were complete for the tournament to kick off.
Hashim said official opening will be the match between Mtibwa Sugar and Azam FC. Azam FC, Young Africans, Mtibwa Sugar and Simba, the best four teams in the league standings, have taken this year’s Mapinduzi Cup quite seriously.
The teams engage in a chase for the Mainland title with Azam FC leading with 35 points followed by second-placed Yanga with 33 points. Now the battle for the VPL championship have been turned to Mapinduzi Cup whereby the four teams
Azam, Yanga, Mtibwa and Simba who are the defending champions, are involved and all sides are targeting the title.
Reigning champions, Simba, despite having unsatisfactory results in the VPL, are looking forward to defend their title which they clinched last year after beating Mtibwa Sugar in the final that was decided by penalty shootouts Simba’s archrivals, Yanga are also eager to claim this year’s title as they declared that they were going to take the event more seriously as part of the league second round and CAF Champions league preparatory programmes.
Another country’s representative in the CAF Confederation Cup, Azam, who are the 2015 Cecafa Kagame Cup champions, are pooled in group B of the event alongside Yanga, Mtibwa Sugar and Mafunzo.
Azam, too are keen to take the silverware, thus making this year’s Mapinduzi Cup, a battle of titans. The ice-cream makers under the tutelage of British coach Stewart Hall are also going to utilize the event as part of their preparations for the CAF Confederation Cup, which they want at least to reach at the quarter final stage.
Azam commence their title campaigns tomorrow night against Mtibwa Sugar.
The match is likely to be a revenge mission for Mtibwa Sugar, who this week lost 1-0 to Azam in the tough league duel. Azam scored the winner in the dying minutes through John Bocco.
But Azam would like to prove to their fans that the victory over Mtibwa Sugar was not a fluke. Azam’s coach Hall said he will take the event as the opportunity to give some of his players, who did not feature in the league enough playing time, a chance to display their skills as well as to keep them fit for other assignments.
The players who will benefit with the decision are Ame Ally, Allan Wanga, Ramadhan Singano, Gardiel Michael, Khamis Mcha, Mudathir Yahya and David Mwantika. Meanwhile, Uganda's representatives, URA arrived in Zanzibar on Friday for the annual Mapinduzi Cup.
The team endured over 1,200 km by road when they left Kampala on Wednesday morning via Mutukula. According to the team media officer, Edward Kulubya, all the team players and officials are safe and ready for the matches.
URA will start up with a match against JKU of Zanzibar tomorrow at 04:15pm. One URA player, Derrick Tekkwo joined the rest of the teammates yesterday having delayed his travel arrangements due to domestic programmes

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