We must go back to basics of soccer

The defeat and subsequent elimination was actually expected based on football standards disparity between the two countries. Very true that soccer remains as the most loved sport in Tanzania but we lack the approach to realise our dreams at stage.

The conspicuous factor remains the way we build our teams to achieve those dreams. We have a football federation filled with officials who are best when it comes to delivering speeches before the public.

It is not a deniable fact that football players must be scouted and then nursed instead of waiting for everyone who makes his or her own efforts to breakthrough the barriers and raise to the stage.

One of the ways to nurse football talents is through establishment of academies but so far efforts are not seriously taken. The football body has overlooked the need to implement the Bagamoyo 2007 FIFA declaration that needs every premiership club to have teams of various age tiers beside the senior one that competes in the top flight berth.

The previous TFF leadership tried hard to ensure at least premier league teams have youth sides of under 20 years. We saw these teams playing matches that precede the main premier league at every venue where premiership was staged.

The source of players for the national team is entirely from the premier league. But how best is our premiership? Do we have a quality premier league?
Certainly the top flight football is of the lowest quality and this is a reason we cannot export players and source them for the national soccer team.

We used to have competitive leagues in the 70’s and 80’s which in turn reflected the standard of our national soccer team. Mind you by that time sponsors were hard to be secured and there was no television coverage to promote the league or national team. Still we made strong impression on the continental football stage to scare teams in the likes of Nigeria and the rest of the East Africa region.

With abundance of corporate sponsorship ranging from the premier league to the national teams, how do we fail to produce formidable and competent players?
A seven-goal thrashing by Algeria last October is the first of its kind in the history of our football. What does this reflect? Are we making progress at international soccer?

Schools are the main source of players but those premier league clubs do not make use to tape these abundant talents and develop into stars.

How on earth a country like Tanzania with over 45 million people produces just two players who are playing professional soccer outside the country?

The failure to export players is testimony of how poor is our football and its substandard level. It will be very difficult to dream of football success if the TFF does not embark on plans to scout talents and thereafter nurse to produce future stars.

Qualification to the African Nations Cup will remain as a unrealised dream if we continue to wait for self-trained players to feature in our teams, academies cannot be avoided.