Cecafa Senior Challenge: Harambee Stars beat Tanzania

FILE: Bandari FC's Abdalla Hassan (left) and Tmonah Wanyonyi of Nakumatt FC during their KPL Match at Kenyatta Stadium, Machakos County on Sunday April 29, 2018. [Jonah Onyango, Standard]

National football team, Harambee Stars got their Cecafa Senior Challenge title defence off to a perfect start on Sunday with a 1-0 win over rivals Tanzania’s Taifa Stars, in Kampala, Uganda.

It took only four minutes for Bandari winger Abdalla Hassan to open his Stars’ goal account on his full national team debut. The priceless goal turned out to be the match winner in a closely contested encounter at Lugogo Stadium.

This was a sweet revenge for Kenya after being recently eliminated by the Tanzanians from the 2020 African Nations Championship (Chan) qualifiers.

The victory saw Kenya go top of Group B with three points after Sudan and Zanzibar played out to a 1-1 draw in an earlier fixture at the same venue.

Kenya face off with Sudan in their second Group match tomorrow at 1:30pm before Zanzibar tackles Tanzania at 4pm. 

In an earlier match at Lugogo Stadium, 10-man Zanzibar forced Sudan to a 1-1 draw.

Khamis Makame had given Zanzibar the lead in the 56th minute only for substitute Osman Montasir to deny the 2017 losing finalists victory with a last gasp strike.

The equaliser came barely five minutes after Zanzibar had been reduced to 10 men following a straight red card on Ahmada Ibrahim for a dangerous tackle.

 Emaldeldeen Salah had earlier in the first half missed a penalty for Sudan after one of the Zanzibar’s defender handled the ball in the box.