Karia pleased with Taifa Stars’ readiness for Morocco clash

17Jan 2024
The Guardian Reporter
Sport
The Guardian
Karia pleased with Taifa Stars’ readiness for Morocco clash

TANZANIA Football Federation (TFF) president Wallace Karia is optimistic about the readiness of the senior national team, Taifa Stars, ahead of the squad's opening match of the 2023 AFCON against Morocco slated for today at Stade de San Pédro in Ivory Coast.

 

Karia- one of the tournament's Executive Committee officials- said Taifa Stars' players are ready for the competition and today's match, adding for him and his delegation, it is a learning process for the squad ahead of the 2027 AFCON set to take place in East Africa. 

The TFF boss revealed: "After several training sessions here at Stade Denis in San Pedro- where Taifa Stars pitched camp- I have received good feedback on the development and readiness of our players ahead of tomorrow's opening match against Morocco."

"I am pleased with the ongoing progress of our national team, with the squad assembled we have an opportunity to do better,” the official said.

Karia said: “On the other hand we are here to learn how to achieve success in the 2027 AFCON, the good thing is we have enough stadiums to plan things out."

"I am also here in camp to show my unraveling presence to the squad, the Minister for Culture, Arts, and Sports Damas Ndumbaro is also here to have a word with the players, and the rest we will leave the technical bench to dictate," he said.

Tanzania has won once against Morocco in head-to-head meetings while Morocco picked four wins with zero draws between the sides.

This will be the first encounter between Morocco and Tanzania at the Africa Cup of Nations. They faced each other last November in World Cup qualifying Morocco won 2-0 in Dar es Salaam.

According to bookmakers, Morocco is the heavy favourite for this match, with the world sports verified data platform, Opta predicting a win in favour of the Atlas Lions. They won 62.9% of the pre-match simulations, compared to Tanzania’s win probability of just 18.0%. The draw is rated at 19.1%.

On the flip side, Tanzania is considered one of the weakest sides in the tournament. Their 0.6% win probability before the tournament started was only better than Angola and Namibia, both on 0.5%.

Tanzania, on the other hand, is very inexperienced at this level. They’ve participated at AFCON only twice before 2023 and never progressed beyond the group stage, only earning a single point over their two tournament runs.

 

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