Kim Poulsen, the new head coach of Tanzania’s national team, has talked about his side’s chances of qualifying for the Africa Cup of Nations.
The 61-year-old Dane has taken over the head coach role from Etienne Ndayiragijje at the helm of the Taifa Stars, following a poor showing by the national squad in the African Nations Championship.
Poulsen’s first task is dealing with the massive qualifiers against Equatorial Guinea in Malabo before traveling back home to face Libya.
Tanzania currently sit in third place in Group J, with one of the two qualification slots already taken by Tunisia. This leaves the Taifa Stars battling it out with the other two teams for a berth at Cameroon 2021.
Aside from taking Tanzania to a second successive AFCON, Poulsen also highlights that his role involves developing young players.
Kim Poulsen – new head coach of Tanzania (Photo by Jan Christensen / FrontzoneSport via Getty Images)
“It has been nice to train intensively close for four days, and we also have another session later on in Kenya,” he said.
“I have two targets. The immediate one is to qualify for AFCON and the second one is to develop the young players we have in the squad since they will be our future stars. They are learning well from their seniors.
“However, the most important thing is to focus on AFCON qualification.”
Poulsen is expecting his international players who play football outside Tanzania to boost the quality of the squad in time for their key key clash in Equatorial Guinea.
“For the foreign-based players we have Nickson Kibabage and Himid Mao [who we have travelled with to Nairobi],” the Dane added.
“By 21st I expect to have all players available which is five days to the match according to the FIFA regulations.”
Group J is extremely tight with Equatorial Guinea on 6 points in 2nd, Tanzania on 4 in 3rd and Libya with 3 points in 4th.
Tanzania know that the game in Malabo is a must-win and they will be confident having been the only team in the group to have managed to gain a point against the mighty Tunisians.
