I'm not sure there is anything really ambiguous about it. For us, the verb inherently has these two meanings, so it's not like we'd stop and think whether it should be one notion or the other.
I kind of feel that the idea of anticipation or expectation dominates in this sentence, but I think I wouldn't have noticed if a translator would have used "awaited" instead of "anticipated" (my choice if I had been the translator) or "expected".
But I understand what bothers you; it's probably like my own problem with "to know" or "to be". It took me long to come to terms with the fact that there is one verb for two separate notions in my head.
