A small sports news item tucked at the left hand corner of one of the inside pages of one this paper’s (The Citizen) issue may have escaped many readers who bought the Citizen issue of August 22nd this year.
The news item headlined: Egypt to use youthful side for the remaining Afcon qualifiers, noted that Africa’s soccer power-house has, from now onwards, decided to make use of players from its U-20 and U-23 in its on-going senior Afcon qualifications.
Egypt’s decision follows the failure of its senior national soccer team, the Pharaohs, to do well in the tournament after winning back to back the coveted Afcon trophy.
The Pharaoh’s success, especially in the Afcon tournament has been a result of years of development of soccer academies and strong belief in juvenile soccer development.
After getting drunk in success, the Egyptian national soccer management delayed introduction of their youthful players into the national soccer team, hence the glagging of national soccer team’s fortunes.
Egypt’s wake-up call came a few weeks ago when the Pharaohs were held to a goalless draw by their South African counterparts, Bafana Bafana, in their own backyard during an Afcon qualification.
Egypt’s U-20 national soccer team did somewhat well in the just ended U-20 World Cup that saw the Brazilians lifting the trophy, that is by global standards, and so has been its U-23.
What the Egyptians have decided to do should be a major lesson to countries like Tanzania which has peddled around its sub-standard national team for over four years despite its poor performance!
One of the questions that many serious minded fans may be asking themselves is what is stopping the promotion of the bulk of players from Jamhuri Kiwhelo’s side into the senior national soccer team?
The question is if some of the team’s players such as Samata and Ulimwengu are doing well both at home and abroad, what stops their colleagues in the team from being promoted into the senior team?
It is important for the powers that be in the soccer realm in this world to bear in mind that they cannot develop the national soccer team by picking players from all corners and nook in the country.
One of the best methods is to get as many players as possible from the national youth team and allow them to develop together as a team.
And there are many examples of teams in the world that went through this system and did extremely well.
For instance the Senegalese team that became the second team, after the Indomitable Lions (Cameroon) to reach the quarterfinals of the World Cup in 1990 in Italy, saw its players playing together from U-17 upwards to the national team.
And barely last year, during the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, the bulk of the Ghanaian players who did very well in that tournament had come from the winning U-17 World Cup team.
The same thing can more or less be said about the present Malian and Burkina Fasso teams, they are a product of youth teams, from U-17 upwards.
What is more, they have all been playing together as teams and that makes the players understand one another so well like a club team.
Promoting a youth team to the senior level helps to build not only camaraderie, but the players also get the opportunity of growing together as a team.
Some of us who were around during the days of Young Africans youth team built by Romanian coach (presently a US citizen), Professor Victor Stanculescus, we saw how the coach promoted the team the juvenile side from its U-14 to U-17 and later to the senior team in mid 1970s.
In fact, had the club not been thrown into conflict in 1976 that saw it split into what came to be known as Yanga Kandambili and Yanga Raison before transforming into Pan African, the club could have done wonders in the continental club tournaments!
Why Young Africans are not re-living their wonderful 1970s by reviving its youth teams that remains a conjecture.
And talking about those golden years, one still wonders why to date, the Tanzania Football Federation, TFF, is not making mandatory for premier league clubs to have juvenile teams as one of conditions to remain in the league?
In fact, the TFF could go further than that by giving more space for the promotion by a premier league team of its youths into the team.
The number of foreign players a club can register for both the league and continental tournament could be kept at five, and the number of youth, slightly higher than that, say seven.
Through the foregoing setup, it would be possible for Tanzania to get somewhere, in terms of both soccer growth and development.
But that can only happen if the TFF transforms itself into soccer developer instead of continuing to confine itself into soccer organizer!
But that
By Attilio Tagalile
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