Photo Courtesy Young Africans (Yanga SC).
Young Africans (Yanga SC) Miloud Hamdi is not concerned for the team to chase for the Mainland Premier League title while sitting second on the table.
The defending champions suffered a setback after they battled to a 0-0 draw against JKT Tanzania, an outcome that could see their rivals Simba SC reclaim the top position if they beat Tanzania Prisons at KMC Stadium on Tuesday.
Speaking after the game, the Algerian coach, who was taking charge of his first game since replacing the departed Sead Ramovic, was asked what impact the draw against JKT could have in their push to defend the title.
“Believe me, I know what I speak, it is better to stay in second place and fight for the title than being at the top and fight for the title, it is very difficult fighting for the title from first position, the best place to stay when fighting for championship is to stay second, stay behind the first team, because every moment we can do something,” Hamdi told Pan-Africa Football.
“So we have not lost anything, we don’t need to panic, we didn’t lose too much, we drew and did not lose the game, it was not possible to win the game, and the draw is better than nothing.”
On the game, Hamdi said: “I said before this game that it was going to be difficult, because we were playing to stretch the gap, so it definitely had to be difficult and we know that when we are a big team, big club, every team wants to fight against us,”
“The first half, we had three situations to score but we couldn’t score, we didn’t have big luck and also JKT had one great chance but they didn’t score, they played a defensive game, 80 percent of the game they played defending and it became difficult to score, or break them down.”
Hamdi was left gutted with the referring situation during the game. He said: “I don’t want to speak on the referee, but I am not happy with the refereeing situation, I am simply not happy with the referee, he stopped the game all the time, we had one situation not offside, please go look in the TV and you will see it was not offside, he gave it as offside, but that is football, football is like that.”
Hamdi concluded: “We really wanted to win this game for all the fans and also to stay higher in the table but sometimes when it not possible to win a game, we must do everything not to lose the game, and it is what we did, we did not win the game, but we did not lose the game.”
Currently, Yanga are sitting at the top of the table with 46 points from 18 matches while Simba are second with 44 points from 17 matches. A win against Tanzania Prisons will see Simba move to the top, one point above Yanga.
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