AFTER being held to a barren draw by Coastal Union, Azam have called on for unity in the team saying the poor results they have recorded in the two matches are partof football.
It was another long night for the Ice Cream makers as they dropped crucial two pointson Tuesday night at their Azam Complex venue thereby failing to make a big step in the league standings.
The outcome saw them slowly losing grip of the season’s Premier League title chase as they are now 17-points inferior to leaders Young Africans and six points behind the second-placed Simba who have a game in hand.
At a post-match briefing, Azam’s Assistant Coach John Matambala said when results are hard to digest, it becomes the best time for all parties in a club to unite while hoping for better results.
“Indeed,we have produced the results which we didn’t envisage, but we just need to be thankful with what we have claimed at this stage when we need a strong unity,”Matambala said.
He also seized the chance to hail their opponents Coastal Union for displaying qualityfootball saying they were good at the midfield section and played as a team asthey were attacking and defending in coordination.
A message to the Azam fraternity, Matambala urged them not to lose hope saying in football, such results are inevitable hence the most important thing is to set their focus ontheir upcoming league fixture in order to do well.
Azam’s draw came after a 2-0 loss to Biashara United in their previous league match as such;they have managed to pick one point and threw away five in the process.
The upsets are rather a real test for the Head Coach Abdihamid Moallin, who after succeeding George Lwandamina, recorded a series of good results before meetingthe disappointment in the two latest matches.
On his part, Coastal Union coach Joseph Lazaro who has replaced the American trainer Melis Medo at the helm of the club said their game plan of not losing the matchworked perfectly well for them.
“Our target was not to concede defeat, that is why we relied on counter-attacks and we were always behind the ball most times. We achieved the objective and now,we focus on the next encounter,” Lazaro said.
The stalemate saw the Tanga-based club climb to the 10th place with 18 points from16-game outings and they still need to scale up their efforts to win most oftheir coming fixtures to stand a good chance of surviving relegation.