Tanzania assistant coach Juma Mgunda believes an all-East African final is possible at the delayed CHAN 2024 tournament if Kenya, Uganda and his country prepare well.
Tanzania assistant coach Juma Mgunda has urged all the three East African nations to ensure they prepare well so that the 2024 African Nations Championships (CHAN 2024) can remain in the region.
The delayed tournament will be held in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania in August with Harambee Stars in a tough group that has Morocco, DR Congo, Angola and Zambia while Tanzania are in Group B with Madagascar, Mauritania, Burkina Faso and Central African Republic.
Meanwhile, Uganda, who will be featuring in their eighth CHAN tournament, face Niger, Guinea and two other teams that are yet to complete the qualifiers in Group C and Mgunda says it is an opportunity for East Africa to prove that they can win it.
Harambee Stars assistant coach believes Harambee Stars’ goalscoring issue is about a lack of enough quality strikers, but Jacob ‘Ghost’ Mulee disagrees, labling it a ‘lame excuse’.
“This is a golden chance for us in the region to make history,” Mgunda told Telecomasia.net.
“It is up to us to tell the players that it is our turn to make a remarkable performance. We will do so in Tanzania just to tell them how vital this tournament is for us.
“I want to see either Kenya, Uganda or Tanzania in the final and why not have an East African final? Our supporters will always be in the stadium to support us and we should leverage on that.”
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The CHAN 2024 LOC chairman has explained why he fears the tournament might suffer greatly unless Harambee Stars make their way past the ‘Group of Death.’
The co-hosts have been challenged to ensure they reach the latter stages of the competition no matter how tough their groups are so that interest in CHAN 2024 does not wane, owing to fan apathy.
“We have discussed with FKF to prepare our team well, we have also told Uganda to prepare their team well. Tanzania the same, so that we don’t lose out in the group stage because that would be the end of the competition,” Kenya’s CHAN 2024 Local Organising Committee chairman Nicholas Musonye told NTV on Monday.
“You know Kenyans when Harambee Stars lose, they say the tournament is finished, let us go and have a beer in Westlands as we watch from there.
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Tanzania Football Federation boss Wallace Karia has explained how bidding together for both CHAN 2024 and AFCON 2027 has affected East Africa’s plans for the two tournaments.
“We want to compel them [fans] to come to the stadium by playing well so that we do not give Kenyans that room of saying after all, we are not there because they have that complacency. We want to go all the way to the final,” he added.
