FOOTBALL mouthing is finally over and Azam FC and Simba Sports Club are today expected to show Tanzania fans who is better than the other. For over two weeks the two clubs and Simba in particular, were engaged in war of words over what they were capable of today.
The day finally provides the opportunity
for both teams to prove to the rest of us why we need to either side
seriously. Two things are at the stake for both teams today, namely, the
all-important points and more importantly, prestige.
Azam have always had problems whenever
they played against Simba in the past. And today it remains to be seen
whether they would be able to overcome such problems.
Between the two, Simba badly needs a win
today having already lost to their arch soccer rivals early in this
season’s Vodacom Premier League. If Simba loses today, they would have
relegated themselves to the third slot, in terms of Dar es Salaam’s top
guns.
That’s why their match against Azam
today is more than a league match, as it revolves around their prestige
as one of the oldest clubs (with Young Africans) in East and Central
Africa.
Azam on the other hand equally need to
win the match today in order to stamp their footprint as top club in Dar
es Salaam. Yes, they need to get out as quickly as possible from Simba
and Young Africans shadow.
In fact, between the tree top Dar es
Salaam clubs, Simba, Young Africans and Azam, the Dar es Salaam ice
cream makers have every reason to seize the top spot in Dar es Salaam on
account of the massive money they spent in building up their club.
Indeed, given the massive financial
resources the club has poured in strengthening the club, there is no
reason why they should play a second fiddle against both Simba and Young
Africans. While Simba would be playing today to get both points and
recoup their past lost glory in Tanzania.
Apart from seeking points and prestige,
Azam will be playing the match today to test whether they have a strong
side for the CAF Cup tournament they are scheduled to play in less than
two months from today.
Therefore if they can beat,
convincingly, Simba today, the victory would serve as an indicator to
the club’s technical bench to what extent they need to work on the team
before the start of the CAF Cup tournament.
Both Azam and Young Africans who would
be competing in the CAF Cup and the Champions League respectively, have
absolutely no reason why they should not go beyond the preliminaries.
For the past three consecutive years, both clubs have failed, miserably,
to go beyond the continental clubs’ preliminaries because of various
factors which include, among others, poor preparations.
If the two clubs fail, once again, to go
beyond the preliminaries, both chief coaches should expect to be shown
out of the door. And they should not expect any Tanzanian soccer fan to
sympathise with them.
Indeed, it’s high time Tanzanians
started to take continental soccer tournaments more seriously. For the
time of fluffing in each and every regional and continental soccer
tournament need to be brought to a halt.
Tanzanian soccer clubs need to recoup
their past glories when they used to call shots in the region. Both
Kilimanjaro Stars and Zanzibar Heroes showed clearly, during the just
ended CECAFA Challenge Cup in Ethiopia, that finally Tanzanian soccer
players are shaking off the rust they have had for years. For much as
they were knocked out of the tournament, this time around they were
better organized and played better.
Good performance has to start at club
level and today’s encounter between Simba and Azam need to mark the
start of what Tanzania soccer fans expect from their teams. As is well
known, between any two teams, there will always be one winner, but
that’s not a problem. What matters most is how the two teams are going
to showcase their game.
Ultimately, people want entertainment,
they want to be showed well,calculated build ups that reflect that the
teams have been highly trained by experienced coaches. Therefore we
expect to see the best brand of soccer, we need to be convinced by both
teams that they have what it takes to play against the best team outside
Tanzania.
In short, Tanzanian clubs in the Vodacom
Premier League need to start producing the kind of soccer performance
that should make soccer fans from Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi to
feel the need of traveling to Tanzania to watch them. In 1970s whenever
Young Africans played against the then Sunderland, present day Simba in a
derby in Dar es Salaam, Kenyans and Ugandans used to travel to Dar es
Salaam to watch the encounter.
The same was true when Uganda Cranes and
Harambee Stars clashed in Kenya or Uganda. Tanzanians travelled to the
two countries to watch the encounter between the two soccer giants. The
same thing came to pass when Luo Union played against Abaluhya United,
the present day AFC Leopards in Nairobi. Their matches used to attract
hundreds of soccer fans from outside Kenya.
Therefore the day the three Dar es
Salaam clubs will start attracting fans from across Tanzanian borders
will mark a new development in the country’s soccer history.
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