Coach Moses Basena has revealed his toughest and best moments during his coaching career.
Basena started his career way back in 1994, at the age of 27, as an assistant coach of Tom Lwanga at Coffee FC.
His career includes spells at URA FC, Simba FC, Simba SC (Tanzania), Uganda Cranes among other teams.
He is currently in Rwanda taking charge of top flight club Sunrise FC.
In an exclusive interview with this website, Basena said:
“My hardest game has to be the match we played against Wydad Casablanca on a neutral ground when I was still the coach of Simba of Tanzania.”
Simba and Wydad had earlier been knocked out of CAF Champions League preliminary rounds by DR Congo’s TP Mazembe.
However, on May 14 2011, CAF disqualified Mazembe following a complaint from Simba about the eligibility of TP Mazembe’s player Janvier Besala Bokungu who was still under contract at Tunisia’s Esperance.
As a result, the Organising Committee decided that a replacement for the group stage would be determined by a play-off match at a neutral venue, between Simba and Moroccan side Wydad Casablanca, which lost to TP Mazembe in the second round.
Basena had joined Simba weeks before the game, replacing Zambia’s Patrick Phiri whose contract had expired.
The club had lost the league title to rivals Yanga and had let go of target man Mbwana Samatta.
Despite the reprieve from CAF to return to the continent, the mood was still very low at Simba.
Facing Wydad at Petro Sport Stadium (Cairo, Egypt) on May 28 2011, Simba had put up a commendable fight.
With the game seemingly heading to shootouts, Fabrice Nguessi broke the deadlock in the 88th minute to break the hearts of Basena and Tanzanians. As if that was not enough, Wydad added two more through Ayoub El Khaliqi and Mouhcine in the added minutes to cement the place in CAF group stages.
Uganda’s Emmanuel Okwi played 90 minutes for Basena’s Simba in the game but could not prevent a 3-0 loss.
Basena says that his best moment was winning the league as URA FC coach.
The Tax collectors won the league in the 2010/11 season with 59 points from 26 games, only losing thrice against Masaka, Utoda and Bunamwaya.
As a player, Basena featured for Tobacco, Coffee and SC Villa – winning the league with the latter in 1992.
