Simba SC have come out to explain why their striker Meddie Kagere was not used when they played against Kaizer Chiefs in the quarter-final return leg of the Caf Champions League in Tanzania.
The fans of the Msimbazi Street-based giants are yet to forget how the team failed to score one more goal to overturn a 4-0 first-leg defeat against the Soweto giants.
The issues of Kagere not featuring in the game at Benjamin Mkapa Stadium also brought in criticism from his agent Peter Gakumba, who claimed Simba should hold coach Didier Gomes Da Rosa responsible for the exit because he refused to play the Rwandese striker.
Simba have now come out to elaborate that even if Kagere was to come in for Chris Mugalu, whom many fans felt needed to substituted during the game, it would not be possible since the new Fifa rules regarding the coronavirus subdivisions prevented the change.
Simba’s team manager Patrick Rweyemamu has explained the changes to Kagere’s possible entry were hampered by changes in Fifa’s rules by the IFAB board and they were not be able to replace him with Mugalu.
Goal Kenya.
What has been said?
“The coaches made the change wanting to speed up the process of creating more scoring chances and we did not need to add more protection that became the first batch,” Rweyemamu said as quoted by Sokalabongo.
Rweyemamu has further stated the introduction of Kagere was affected by the use of three substitutions already, following the head-on crash between defender Joash Onyango, and Taddeo Lwanga, who were both forced off in the first half.
“The doctors thought Onyango could continue so we did not want to change him instead he was treated for a short time out,” Rweyemanu continued.
“After a while, we were told he was not able to continue and they advised him to be substituted, now that is where everything went wrong and as you all saw we regretted not only losing Onyango but we were hurt by misusing this new principle of change.
“We had to remove Onyango and replace him with Kennedy [Juma] now for the code change calculations, the first batch of player changes was used for Morrison, the second batch was for Nyoni and the third for Kennedy.
“If you look at it, the rules did not allow coaches to bring on Kagere again or remove Mugalu and then all the calculations were ruined but the biggest was when we suffered injuries to Onyango and Lwanga destroying everything.”
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