On Sunday last week, Yanga made history by reaching the quarter-finals of the CAF Confederations Cup after a 2-0 victory against US Monastir of Tunisia
It was a victory that not only took Yanga to the quarter finals, but also guaranteed the Citizens to stay at the top of group D with 10 points same as Monastir, but Yanga having a good goal differnce.
After the defeat, the head coach of US Monastir Darko Novic admitted that he lost the game against the best team while predicting to the Citizens that they can reach the semi-finals
US Monastir is one of the best teams this season, their team is worth more than Tsh 20 billion with a good season in the Tunisian league
They qualified for the play-offs in their home league as leaders of group B and are now third in the play-offs with seven points, the same as Esperance who are in second place
Etoile Du Sahel leads with 9 points but has played one more match than Monastir and Esperance
The form of the Tunisian premier league is played in two groups where the top four teams in each group qualify to the play-off league that produces the champion
But their coach Novic has admitted to being surprised by the ability of Yanga that they showed at the Mkapa Stadium in a game in which Monastir had only one shot that was on target
"For me, I see Yanga will go far by looking at the quality of their team and having a good coach (Nabi) who is well aware of this competition"
"Nabi has put Yanga in a safe place tactically and that even when his team is behind they play well," Novic was quoted by Mwanaspoti
"When we played against them and we won (2-0) all the time we were not calm to see if we finished the match. I respect them because they show that their coach has done a great job. When I was following them and watching their matches I did not see if there was a game where they were overpowered on possession"
"I like the way they play, they force you, they always want the ball to be in their possession. When we played against them and then played against Tp Mazembe we saw a big difference, it was enough to see that Yanga will be our biggest competitors in our group"
"Yanga's second weapon is the two attackers in the front area, the number 9 (Mayele) is dangerous, he knows how to score but he also has pace. There is the number 25 (Musonda) who is the biggest problem, when you have attackers like that force the defenders to lose their discipline due to their speed. The worst thing is they play with a lot of cooperation"
