There is no better motivation for the new week! MSV Duisburg wins its important home match against Viktoria Köln with 2:0 on Saturday and 7,000 km away successes are also celebrated in Zebrastrefen!
In recent weeks, the TanZebras have played friendly matches with the strongest U20 teams from Tanzania (Simba SC, Azam FC, and Yanga SC, where Rudi Gutendorf was coach from 1981-1982). Unfortunately, they were unable to win against the top 3 teams from Tanzania (as expected), but these friendly matches were very important for the team to develop athletically and to measure themselves against better teams.
I will quote Jörg Ahlbach (Yike) here, who is partly responsible for this project due to the spread of the zebra virus in Tanzania… 😉
“Learning from mistakes is our motto. However, we also received a lot of encouragement from the opposing coaches, who considered our team to be “exceptional”. With our playing system, charisma and a squad that is above average for a third division team, we are definitely an opponent to be taken seriously in the next few years. Such assessments are encouraging and give reason to believe that we could really aim for promotion to the second division next season.”
That doesn’t sound wrong! Keep it up, TanZebras!
The TanZebras team then made their way to Morogoro (about 200 km west of Dar es Salaam) at the end of last week to take part in the “Highlands Cup”. A tournament with a well-staffed field of participants. It was played over two days. The TanZebras finally made it to the final, where they won 4:1 (0:0) in a penalty shootout against Dunila FC! The trophy was celebrated on the way back to Gongo la Mboto, Dar es Salaam.
We have put online for you “a few” pictures that reached us via WhatsApp (unsorted) to give you the impressions. Furthermore, Tanzania’s biggest sports journalist “Shaffi Dauda” (5 million followers on Instagram) reported about the TanZebras and the tournament.
You can’t imagine how proud the boys are of this success! All TanZebras would like to thank all supporters who made this journey possible! Asante sana, Zebras!