The battle for the soul of the African women club title gets keener as teams now shift ground to the quarter-finals which get underway Friday at the gymnase of Ouidah 45 kilometre from Cotonou, Benin Republic.
The eight teams that made it through to the quarter-finals have shifted their focus on plans to outwit one another in the race for the title being held by Desportivo basketball club of Mozambique who is also in the race for a record third straight title as it coach Sale Nasir have declared in emphatic term that nothing will stop them from snatching the title again.
Coach Nasir who is also double as the head coach of the Mozambique senior women national team knows his onions and this they have being able to displayed since the 2009 final round dunks-off on November 13 in Cotonou, Benin Republic.
The soft-spoken coach says his team will approach each game with the same zeal and seriousness as was evident during the preliminary round which saw them winning their remaining games after losing her opening group-B game against Alexandra Sporting Club of Egypt against First Deepwater of Nigeria, CSA of Cote d'Ivoire and Interclube of Angola.
We respect all the teams in the final rounds as no team is a push-over here but we are confident that we will go all the way and the only thing on our mind is to repeat what we have done in the last two editions of the competition.
'Remember we lost our opening group-B game to Alexandra Sporting Club of Egypt who incidentally did not make it to the last eight and that defeat actually woke us up to the reality that women basketball is growing on the continent.
We know Kenya Ports Authority our quarter-final opponent to be a difficult side when it gets to this stage, as they almost cause a stir when we play them on home soil in 2007 at the quarterfinal stage, the coach concluded.
Coach of First Bank basketball club of Nigeria, Adewumi Aderemi whose team gained a wild-card to the final rounds says his team will not treat any of its opponents with kid glove as was the case in Abidjan, Cote d"Ivoire during the FIBA Africa Zone III qualifiers.
Coach Aderemi whose side won the title for the first and only time in 2003 told FIBA Africa crew that the Elephant Girls is out to power past all oppositions enroute to winning the title for the second time.
He also called for the granting of a second slot to Africa in the FIBA World Club Championship that Africa basketball has come of age.