City rivals ought not to fear for next season.

On the whole there is one masterful actor, Simba SC who now boast the cream of top players from the three city rivals, itself as well as Young Africans SC along with.

Azam FC. The case for the latter is even more surprising as they run a parallel tournament with independent financial backing, but failed to hold on to players.

As things now look, there will be a superstar team by local standards at Msimbazi Street, while the two other venues, Jangwani Street and Chamazi Complex will strictly be just a header or notch higher than the rest of the premier league. It thus begins to appear that next season will be a one horse race, unless something that is out of the ordinary happens, but we saw glimpses of extraordinary things in the past season as well. It is greater determination from city underdogs to continuing humiliation of city giant sides when meeting supposed underdogs on home turf.

The last premier league contention was actually decided by whether Simba SC obtains three points in a match  where strugglers Mbao FC used an ineligible player, points at first decided upon and then reversed by top level machinations.  At the same time the strugglers twice hounded the Jangwani Street side that emerged champions chiefly on denying Msimbazi Street the three points, which means that neither side actually won the contest on a clean run. Changing the balance and adding more glamour in Simba and reducing the same, if it is taken up in the Mbao FC context, changes nothing in the soccer equation but complicates it.

A star-studded side has greater chances of victory because of team depth, that whenever it needs to make a substitution it knows where to draw from, as if it never substituted in the first place. Simba will have a clear advantage in that direction next season, but by itself it doesn’t assure them net superiority over other despite that it stands a good chance of actually dominating the league run. There was a time it obtained seven league draws in a run, and nobody remembers that they had failed to register the players they wanted. In another year, they appeared to rely wholly and completely on Emmanuel Okwi, sowing conflicts in the club. 

Suffice is it to say that the doors of who wins the next premier league remain wide open, as for instance Azam FC appears to have been a better side with its academy youngsters graduating into premier league football and started sliding after it was now capable of signing Ivorian and other professionals. The same goes for Yanga last year as it did not impress as much in winning the league ‘on penalties’ despite having the sort of players that Simba and clubs in Egypt or South Africa are now tearing at. Irony has it that it may actually become a more cohesive or disciplined side once every player knows he has something to prove, that “the beautiful ones are all gone,” to awkwardly cite Ghanaian writer Ayi Kwey Armah’s’ the beautiful ones are not yet born.’ Humility or humbleness can enhance training, motivation…

Such is the reality of the sport, where for instance a star player in UEFA Champions League, Gareth Bale who turns up for Real Madrid was once telling his Atletico Madrid archrivals that in their hard hitting side none can secure a playing position at Real Madrid. That could also be said of Mbao FC players in the Yanga line up at least for last season, and still the teams went to penalties twice in finals of the Champions League, just as Yanga lost twice to the supposed Mwanza neophytes. Having a near ‘galactic’ side like Simba this year isn’t roses to the cup.