Amavubi challenged to impress on home turf

The Director of Sports in the Ministry of Sports and Culture, Emmanuel Bugingo, has challenged Amavubi Stars to have a winning mentality going into the 2016 Africa Nations Championships (CHAN) which will run from January 16 to February 7 in Rwanda. Bugingo made the call during a recent visit to Huye, one of the three cities that will host the CHAN finals tournament. He said, “This is a tough journey that you are embarking on, so we challenge the players to put in their best effort.” “We need to write a new chapter for Rwandan football and this will only be possible if we, as hosts, put on a good performance because we have the players to achieve it. There is no reason why they (team) can’t make it,” Bugingo said. The official, who is also the vice president of the tournament’s Local Organizing Committee (LOC) noted that, “We have tried to prepare the team with many friendly matches and we will continue to do so until the time of the tournament.” Rwanda CHAN team captain Eric ‘Bakame’ Ndayishimiye said, “With good preparations we will get better results, I believe we have the potential to match any of our opponents in whatever group we will be.” The draw for the final tournament of the competition will take place on November 18 in Kigali. The event will be held at Amahoro National Stadium, Kigali Regional Stadium in Nyamirambo, Huye Stadium in Huye District and Umuganda Stadium in Rubavu. The three-week fourth edition of the biennial international football championship is organized by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) for the national teams featuring exclusively players from their respective national leagues. As the part of the preparations Amavubi has been in Morocco for a special training camp (the team returns home today) where they played and lost two friendly matches against Burkina Faso CHAN 2016 team (1-0) last Friday and Tunisia’s Olympics team also by the same score on Sunday in Rabat. Johnny McKinstry’s team, which has now lost their last four matches, will face Libya next month in the second round of the 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifier which will be held in Russia. Amavubi will also compete in the CECAFA Senior Challenge Cup that will be held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from November 27 to December 12 before they return home to continue preparations ahead of CHAN 2016 finals. Rwanda last participated in the second edition in Sudan, but didn’t go beyond the group stage after losing all their games in a group that also had the eventual champions, Tunisia and finalists, Angola. editorial@newtimes.co.rw