Yanga SC head coach Nasredinne Nabi has explained how he came up with tactics that helped them beat Tanzania Mainland Premier League champions Simba SC 1-0 on Saturday.
The Tunisian coach revealed he watched Simba's previous games, especially the one against Al Merrikh in the Champions League, and drilled his players on how to execute a counter-strategy against Wekundu wa Msimbazi.
One of the key areas Nabi said Yanga had to work on was their rivals' ability to use their full-backs Shomari Kapombe and Mohamed Hussein in engineering dangerous attacking moves.
"I looked back at some of their games and analysed how we could tackle them. I took my players through a tactical system that helped them train to counter Simba's move," Nabi told Mwanaspoti.
"Practically, we managed to employ what we trained on and we got an early goal even though we missed a number of chances, including one open opportunity that Yacouba Songne failed to score from.
"I have never talked to Didier Gomes Dar Rosa but he is a coach that I have come to analyse and understand his tactics.
"I told my players to be aggressive, especially in recovering the ball, because Simba always struggle against a team that is aggressive.
"We were aggressive and whenever we lost the ball we ensured we recovered it quickly and this completely worked against Simba because they are a team that can not handle such kind of pressure.
"I also warned my players not to leave spaces that Simba could end up exploiting to their advantage. We had to maintain our solidity in order to deny the opponents that space where they can weave passes through and end up harming us.
"I also noticed that Simba usually use Kapombe and Hussein to launch attacks from their respective full-back positions and I came up with a concrete plan to make sure they were not going to successfully execute that."
The Kariakoo clubs will meet again on July 25 during the Federation Cup final in Kigoma. This will be the second consecutive final in which Simba and Yanga are facing each other after the Mapinduzi Cup tie which Timu ya Wannachi ended up winning on post-match penalties in January.