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Cranes' coach Csaba will need mental strength
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Fred Kaweesi in Dar-es-Salaam
SENIOR CHALLENGE CUP
Quarterfinals
Sudan 2 Tanzania 1
Burundi 2 Eritrea 1
Today, Live on GTV
Uganda v Kenya 1.30pm
Zanzibar v Rwanda 4.00pm
Semifinal 1
Sudan v Burundi
LASZLO Csaba loves playing chess and might need to apply a bit of it today. The extent to which his second favourite game has influenced the approach to his favourite one (football) has thus far been restricted to team rotation.
But many a pundit at the ongoing CECAFA Challenge Cup confesses that Cranes’ football so far has been chess-like. Chess is a game that requires mental strength and tactical awareness to guarantee results.
These are the concepts Csaba conceded yesterday will be essential if Cranes are to successfully negotiate their way past Kenyan counterpart Jacob ‘Ghost’ Mulee’s strategy in today’s quarter-final fixture.
“It’s going to be a very competitive game that will need a lot of thinking especially as regards tactics,” Csaba stressed.
The German sends his team out against Kenya’s Harambee Stars with the ultimatum to pass the ball around and impose maximum pressure or suffer the consequences.
Csaba is certain to retain the experienced side that dispatched rivals Rwanda 2-0 in the group stages but will make changes early in the game if they give the ball away cheaply — a major factor in Cranes’ 3-2 defeat against Eritrea.
“We have to pass the ball better than we did against Eritrea, and this team is capable of doing that. We will also have to be disciplined,” he said.
If Cranes’ previous lunch-time kick-off games have proved one thing, it is that they will have to motor in top gear and not in bits to get the result they need. Playing in second or third gear is not an option.
The problem though as Csaba highlighted earlier, is that it is impossible to keep the accelerator flat to the floor under humid conditions with temperatures as high as 34 degrees centigrade.
Csaba will expect his side to play a patient game, keeping possession and thus frustrate Kenya, whose strategy since the start of the tournament has to seek an early goal.
With the Harambe Stars playing their customary 4-3-3 formation with Edgar Ochieng, Allan Wanga and John Njoroge leading their three-man attack, Cranes’ strategy will be flooding the midfield with the hope of suffocating supply to the trio.
CECAFA second top scorer Hamis Kitagenda and partner Caesar Okuti hope to end their 180-minute goal ‘drought’.
The quarter-finals kicked off yesterday with the shock exit of Tanzania. Home fans threatened to lynch the team’s Brazilian coach Mazimo Mario.
Sudanese striker Abduhamid Amarria sent hosts Tanzania out of the CECAFA championship with a first half brace yesterday.
Probable line-up:
H.Muwonge, S.Massaba, G.Kateregga, M.Doka, A.Mwesigwa, N.Kasule, D.Wagaluka, A.Bajope, H.Kitagenda, C.Okuti, R.Muganga.
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