CAFCC: Al Masry strong opponent standing in Simba SC’s way – Davids

Photo Credit - Simba SC Tanzania.

Simba SC head coach Fadlu Davids has explained the team’s confidence heading into their Caf Confederation Cup quarter-final first leg clash against Al Masry of Egypt at the New Suez Stadium on Wednesday.

“We have a very strong opponent that stands in our way, number four in the Egyptian league before they made the change of splitting the relegation and championship, which clearly shows they have a well-balanced team, very tactical and well organized and despite the coaching changes, the new coach has had over seven to eight matches with a clear identity of how he will approach the game,” Davids told Pan-Africa Football.

“With the personnel that he has, like I said they have got very good players in the team, Salam Hussein, the striker and they have a good defense line, and that just tells you the strength of the attack, quite experienced attack. They have got depth in all departments, so the expectation is good, we are quite confident in ourselves, we know what to expect, we are not getting too excited, but we are a team that has really developed and progressed throughout the tournament.

We have proved it through our last match against Al Ahli Tripoli away, to our last match when we played CS Constantine away and home, we have improved a lot as a team and confident in ourselves but not overconfident, we are quite realistic as well to the strength of the opponent and playing away from home, also gives you a test but we have to believe in ourselves, stay cautious but stay confident at the same time.”

On their preparations heading into the away game in Cairo, the South African coach said: “Our preparations have all gone well, we arrived here on Friday, good hosts in terms of our stay so far in Ismailia, we had a good training session, so our players are acclimatizing and adapting to the conditions. We put our final training session on the key details, on our strategic plan for the match, and all has gone well so far, so we only focus about executing the plan accordingly and coming away with a good result.”

Previously, the Msimbazi Reds have reached the quarter-finals of the Champions League on three occasions— 2020/21, 2022/23 and 2023/24—and made it to the same stage in the Confederation Cup during the 2021/22 season.