We spoke to Captain Eric Juma after the boys arrived from Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania and he was full of praise for his teammates. He pointed out the competitiveness in the squad as the most striking positive he noted during the five days stay in Tanzania.

“We have picked up lots of lessons from the two matches that we played in Tanzania. It has been a good outing and I am very happy with the boys.”

“What stood out for me was that everyone proved that they are ready to step up when called upon by the coach. You could see in the Yanga game, we were missing four players who were on international duty but the boys still competed very well against a soccer powerhouse in the region under an electric atmosphere.In the second game, the coach changed the entire line up and still, the boys gave a good performance against a good team.”

He pointed out that this hasn’t been the case over the past seasons as the absence of three or two players would have really affected the team negatively.

“ We have been having a problem anytime we miss two or three key players but this time round everybody is positive, eager and ready to step up to the challenge regardless of the opposition.”

This, he believes, makes them a stronger squad than before giving them a chance to compete on different fronts;

“Now we can compete on different fronts. That is what we want to do this season. We want to show a different level from the rest and we want to push harder and harder to get the best out of ourselves.”

The Dar es Salaam tour saw Sharks play against two teams set to take part in the continental championships. That the coach was able to use 24 players in the two games shows that the captain is very much correct in his assessments.