Twiga Stars will need to work hard….

The women national soccer side, Twiga Stars, host their Ethiopian counterparts in the return leg of round two of the Africa Women Championship (AWC) qualifiers at the National Stadium in Dar es Salaam this afternoon.

Twiga Stars will need to work hard to beat the regional rivals to go through for the second time to the finals set to be staged in November in Equatorial Guinea. Twiga Stars’ first qualification was in 2010 when the finals were staged in South Africa.

A 1-0 win will be enough to put them through into the finals.

The team trained by Charles Boniface Mkwasa suffered a 2-1 defeat to Ethiopia in the first leg played in Addis Ababa last month. The Ethiopian goals came from Helen and Chuchu, as the side seeks to compete in the AWC finals for the first time, while Fatuma Mustafa netted for the visitors in the first half to revive hopes for the Bongoland girls.

Twiga Stars’ technical bench will need to be keen as it is not going to be an easy game for them. The Ethiopians qualified for the second round at the expense of Egypt, one among pre-tournament favourites. The Ethiopian ladies nicknamed “Dinkinesh” defeated the North African side by a scintillating 4-0 in the return leg to advance on a 6-4 aggregate score.

The home side advanced into this stage after hammering Namibia’s Brave Gladiators to a 7-2 aggregate in January. They won 2-0 in their away match in Windhoek before posting an emphatic 5-2 win in the return leg tie at home.

Winners of today’s game will join 11 other teams from around the continent in the race to decide who joins hosts Equatorial Guinea and the Democratic Republic of Congo in the finals.