Taifa Stars’ qualification in the Africa Nations Cup, Afcon, hangs in the balance according to reporters who travelled with the team to Bangui last week.
The team went down 1-2 to their counterparts in a game that both reporters and the coach, Poulsen, are agreed on one thing, that Taifa Stars were robbed of their rightful victory.
According to both parties, Machupa’s goal scored in the last ten minutes of the game was clean.
But the Ghanaian referee, Joseph Lamtey described by Coach Poulsen as their opponents’ 12th player, disallowed it for reasons best known to him.
Personally, I don’t buy the two parties’ arguments-cum-complaints revolving around biased refereeing in the Bangui’s encounter.
I’m still convinced that Taifa Stars could have won that match if they wanted and, more importantly, had they been well prepared for the entire tournament as opposed to one match.
Coach Poulsen was quoted by the media, that include this paper, as saying that he felt sorry for the players.
He does not need to! The players are to blame for their lack of drive whenever they play against foreign teams.
Let us not forget that this is the most pampered national team in history in terms of the money sponsors like the NMB bank and Serengeti Breweries have been spending on the team.
Just last year, players from the Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC, expressed their surprise and shock at Taifa Stars players’ lack of drive when they played against their Egyptian counterparts in Cairo in which they were thrashed by five goals to nil.
For instance, they said they could not understand how a player could smile after a goal had been scored against his team!
In short, Taifa Stars’ problems are more than biased refereeing, which they should have expected anyway, when playing away from home.
Yes, Taifa Stars should not have expected an easy game in Bangui. More often than not, away games are always fraught with biased refereeing and this is not only in Africa, but all over the world.
That is why it is always important for a team to ensure that its performance away from home is more than doubled.
Indeed, no referee in his right senses would be fair in a match in which a host nation’s team is taking on a visiting opponent for the simple reason that after the game, he will spent a night in a foreign country!
But no matter how biased a referee is, he will turn down one or two goals.
But if goals continue to pour in, it will reach a point where he will have no alternative but to give up!
Therefore in order to win in a game that is away from home, the visiting team must be extremely good, both mentally and in scoring goals.
After Taifa Stars had their second goal disallowed, they should have immediately ensured that they scored another goal instead of wasting time brooding over their disallowed goal.
Unfortunately we all know that they did not do that and instead, they allowed their opponents to cash in on their disappointment by scoring in the winning goal.
Let us not forget that past experiences show that Taifa Stars have always had problems in the last ten or so minutes.
And unfortunately, this problem is apparent on all our soccer teams at national and club level.
Just recently, Simba lost by three goals in the last three minutes of the game when they played against Morocco’s Wydad in Cairo!
And the same thing befell Taifa Stars in Bangui, losing in a game they should have easily wrapped up!
Our players don’t seem to be learning anything from this last minutes defeates!
Our foreign and local coaches ought to tell us why our teams always lose in the dying minutes of their games.
Taifa Stars are now left with one away game against Morocco and there is no way they are going to beat their opponents let alone draw.
And the simple reason for this is that they don’t have what it takes to win away from home.
However, if Taifa Stars are to qualify for the Afcon tournament, they have no alternative but to win all their remaining two matches and hope that Morocco loses all their remaining matches.
But again, that is an uphill task for our team whose bosses, Tanzania Football Federation (TFF) have a penchant for working on the team during the tournament rather than before!
It is important for the TFF to bear in mind that Taifa Stars will never get anywhere in international soccer tournaments as long as they continue to prepare the team in the manner they have been doing since they came to power!
Unfortunately, Taifa Stars’ successive failures have nothing to do with the coach.
But rather the TFF’s failure to get the team as many top-flight friendly matches as possible.
In fact, Taifa Stars is likely to be the only team in Africa that has been taking part in international soccer tournaments after playing very few friendly matches at home and abroad.
It is surprising that despite being armed with this knowledge, Tanzanian soccer fans continue to believe in their teams!
It is unfortunate that Tanzanians still continue to believe that their national soccer teams’ successes will be brought home through the engagement of top flight coaches!
But best practices show that contrary to the foregoing erroneous thinking, the route to soccer success lies in the establishment of soccer academies, introduction of sports in schools and organization of schools sports tournaments.
Tanzania’s poor performance in the past and present international youth soccer tournaments is a testimony to the country’s lack of seriousness in developing soccer the tender age.
It is time Tanzanians asked themselves why their teams have failed to get anywhere in international soccer tournaments despite employing some of the best coaches in the world.
By Attilio Tagalile
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