The national women soccer team, Twiga Stars, have been drawn against Zambia in the Africa Women Championship (AWC) qualifier, the Tanzania Football Federation (TFF) announced yesterday.
Twiga Stars
This follows the draw for the qualifiers conducted recently at the Confederation of African Football (CAF) headquarters in Cairo, Egypt. According to TFF Information Officer Boniface Wambura, Twiga Stars will start their campaign away in Lusaka in a match that will be played between February 13-15, next year while the return leg encounter will be staged in Dar es Salaam between February 28 and March 2.
Should Twiga Stars dispatch Zambia, they will face a second round hurdle against winners of the first round match between Botswana and Zimbabwe. The first leg will be played in Dar es Salaam between May 23 and 25, 2914 and a return leg tie are scheduled for June 6- 8, 2014 to decide who join Namibia for the AWC finals in Windhoek.
The race to the 2014 Namibia AWC finals will see a record number of 25 teams vie for the seven places at the ninth edition of the CAF Africa Women Championship to be held from 11 to 25 October 2014.
The top three teams from the last championship held in Equatorial Guinea, namely winners Equatorial Guinea runners-up South Africa and bronze medallists Cameroon, have received first round byes and will only join the qualifiers from the second round. Equatorial Guinea won the title after beating South Africa 4-0 in the final and Cameroon edged Nigeria 1-0 to claim third place in the 8th African Women Championship.
Two weeks ago, Twiga Stars coach Rogasian Kaijage summoned 30 players in the camp for an 11-day training programme. Most of the players are youths called from the recently held Inter Secondary and Inter Primary Schools Games (UMISSETA and UMITASHUMTA) and other tournaments such as Airtel Rising Stars and Copa Coca Cola.
Kaijage has also retained some of the old faces in the squad. He named the players as Amina Ally, Donisia Daniel, Belina Julius, Rehema Abdul and Tatu Idd, all from Lord Barden in Coast Region. Others are Asha Rashid, Evelyn Sekikubo, Fatuma Hassan, Mwanahamisi Omari and Zena Khamis from Mburahati Queens.
Those from Sayari Queens are Esther Chabruma, Fatuma Mustafa, Fatuma Omari, Mwapewa Mtumwa, Pulkeria Charaji and Sofia Mwasikili, while Eto Mlenzi and Maimuna Said come from JKT, Gerwa Lugomba and Sabahi Hashim from UMISSETA. The list also has Fatuma Bushiri (Simba Queens), Fatuma Issa and Vumilia Maarifa (Evergreen), Fatuma Flora Kayanda and Semeni Abeid (Tanzanite) and Hamisa Athuman (Marsh Academy), Maimuna Hamisi (Airtel Rising Star), Sharida Boniface (Makongo Secondary), Therese Yona (TSC Academy, Mwanza) and Yulitha Kimbuya (Marsh Academy, Mwanza).
