20101010
Daily News

Dar es Salaam — TAIFA Stars coach Jan Poulsen admitted that Tanzania now faces an arduous task in their 2012 African Cup of Nations (Afcon) qualifying campaign following 1-0 loss against Morocco, but believes his side performed well and has bright future.

Stars Danish tactician Poulsen was left frustrated after his players failed to take advantage of long periods of territorial dominance at the National Stadium in Dar es Salaam on Saturday.

"Our chances (of qualifying for the 2012 finals) have gone down a little bit because we have lost the match of course, that is how it is," conceded Poulsen after the match.

And Poulsen lamented his team's lack of cutting edge as the reason behind their failure to capitalize on the home ground advantage, but couldn't complain losing against a team of Morocco's stature.

"We had a lot of possession but we didn't create so many chances, my players worked very well, they showed commitment but we need to create chances and score goals. I must say congratulation to Morocco, they have a good team, I don't think you can say anything to Morocco winning one nil.

"I think we gave Morocco a good match, we enjoyed a lot of possession," said Poulsen who conceded that his team came up against tough opponents; "There are some aspects of the game where you can see that we played against players at a high level."

Poulsen held that Taifa Stars' lack of cutting was a reflection of the problem of creative players and attackers also seen in the premier league.

"It is the problem you also see in the league that we had difficulties of creating the chances, of course you had to say that Morocco's defence was big and strong and played very well."

However he challenged his players to increase the tempo of their attacks when in opponents' area, "We need to play a faster game in order to get into the box most often and maximize our scoring chances."

He said Stars need to have one or two players who can make difference up front by creating and scoring goals against any strong defence, "That is what we have to look for."

Most soccer analysts who watched the match beamed live on SuperSport said Tanzania have little chance of ending its 30-year wait for a place in the continental finals unless they improve on the quality of finishing they showed against Morocco.

The Dane defended his tactics of deploying Mrisho Ngasa upfront with Danny Mrwanda playing as second striker and refuted suggestions that the Azam striker lacked support for most of the game.

"If you look, Danny was very close to him all the time, so I don't think he was a lone striker, like Nigeria play the same way, Danny is striker, we have Nizar (Khalfan) can go forward, but I must agree that we need to be more compact upfront."

In the end Poulsen believes that the future is still bright for Tanzanian team, "If we can keep this team together and if we can get some of these young players improving their game, the future looks okay for Tanzania."

Morocco's attacking midfielder Houssine Kharja who plays for Serie A club Genoa and the team's caretaker coach Dominique Cuperly hailed Stars' performance and conceded that the hosts gave them a torrid afternoon.

Kharja said: "I think that they are very good, it was very difficult game because Tanzania is a team that plays good in defence and they have very good counter attacks, I'm so happy that we won."

Kharja believes Morocco are making good progress after a slow start to their campaign following a goalless draw against Central Africa republic.

"Now we're better because we had a lot of players injured, but now the guys are coming back and I think that we can play better and we can make a very good qualification and now we have to take on Algeria it is a very difficult game."

The loss, Tanzania's first of the campaign, leaves Poulsen's men on one point after two games while Morocco improved to four points in Group D. The other teams in the group, Algeria and Central Africa Republic met yesterday.