Somalia's & Mogadishu's No. 1 Team Defeats Eritrea

[AbdiWahab252]

Somalia's Elman club on Monday defeated El-Tahir of Eritrea in their Group C preliminary tie of the 2006 Central and East African Club Soccer Championship in Morogoro in central Tanzania.

The win put the Somalian club past championship hosts Tanzania's Moro United club that went 1-0 down to defending champions SC Villa of Uganda on Sunday.

Only two teams from the round-robin preliminaries of Group C will advance into the sudden-death quarter-finals to be held next week.

Moro United, the only Tanzanian club still active in the ongoing African continental soccer tournament, is now at the bottom of the four-team group preliminaries.

The host squad has to win its next game with El-Tahir with a big margin to keep its hope alive to advance into the quarters.

Group A and B, each having five teams in action, will have their top three squads advance into the quarter-finals according to championship regulations.

Fourteen clubs from all the 10 countries affiliated with the Confederation of East and Central African Football Associations have fielded teams in this year's championship, also known as the Kagame Cup.

The tournament kicked off last Friday and lasts until May 28.

Tanzania's Young Africans, also known as Yanga, is drawn into Group A actions along with St. George of Ethiopia, Ulinzi of Kenya, Inter Stars of Burundi and Polisi of Zanzibar.

Clubs drawn into Group C are Moro United of Tanzania, Altahril of Eritrea, Elman of Somalia, and Sports Club Villa of Uganda.

Sports Club Villa are the defending champions of the annual tournament that inaugurated back in 1974.

Source: Xinhua, May 16, 2006