Azam FC prolongs record firing of coaches

Coaches typically face a large number of varied demands associated with the working context such as unrealistic performance demands, management, administration, interpersonal, and organizational stress.

Moreover, the context is complex, dynamic, unpredictable, highly competitive, and involves extensive amounts of travel days and work hours without boundaries that may lead to work and home life interference.

Stress is and will always be an integral part and key feature of coaching at this level, coupled with unrealistic performance demands and job insecurity.

This is especially relevant for prominent team sports including football, which also involve thousands, and sometimes millions, of engaged and passionate fans, media, stakeholders, and sponsors.

Indeed, high-performance coaching, in general, is a profession that is vulnerable to mental health problems and in particular football, little mistakes committed by the tactician will end in the tactician losing his job because clubs' owners always need positive outcomes.

In Mainland Tanzania's Premier League, many outfits that have hired foreign coaches have ended up terminating their agreements with the tacticians either a few days before contract expiry or shortly after contract signing.

Records show that traditional rivals Simba SC and Yanga are the leading teams that have hired foreign coaches since they were established in 1935 (Yanga) and 1936 (Simba SC).

Azam FC is another outfit that has hired foreign coaches despite its infancy in the sport in comparison with Simba SC and Yanga SC.

Chamazi-based Azam FC was founded in 2004 and was by then known as Mzizima Football Club, one year later the club's owners changed its name to Azam Sports Club. In 2006, the outfit was named Azam Football Club, the side started using its home stadium Azam Complex in 2010.

Since the outfit started battling it out in Mainland Tanzania Premier League, other local competitions, and continental inter-club showdowns, the outfit has lifted 10 trophies.

Azam FC has clinched one Premier League top honour, five Mapinduzi Cup showdown's top honours, two trophies in the Kagame Cup tournament, one Azam Sports Federation Cup (ASFC) title, and one Community Shield.

In the 2013/14 Vodacom Premier League, the outfit won the league unbeaten, the squad boasted an unbeaten record in 26 matches in a run that stretched to 38 games from the 18th round of the 2012/13 season to the round of 2014/15 season.

In 2015, the club became the first in Tanzania's soccer history to win the Kagame Cup tournament's top honour without conceding a goal.

The list of foreign tacticians that have coached Azam FC is astonishingly long, with the tacticians making their way out of the squad for either one or more reasons.

The biggest reason that brought about the tacticians' contract termination is the side's poor results in  Mainland Tanzania Premier League and CAF club tournaments.

Dutch tactician Hans van der Pluijm and his assistant Juma Mwambusi were fired by Azam FC's management following the outfit's poor performance.

Pluijm who is now Singida Big Stars' head coach and Mwambusi that is the head coach for Ihefu SC joined Azam FC on July 1, 2018, from Yanga and left the outfit on February 20, 2019.

French coach Denis Lavagne joined Azam FC on September 7, 2022, two weeks after the club had fired American coach Abdihamid Moallin.

Lavagne, sadly, became the only foreign coach who stayed with the outfit for the shortest time, spanning 47 days, losing his job for poor performance.

Moallin an American of Somali origin joined Azam FC on July 1, 2021, as the club's Technical Director.

In January 2022 he was appointed as the outfit's head coach to replace Zambian coach George Lwandamina who was fired following a poor performance at the start of the 2021/22 NBC Premier League. Moallin was fired on August 2022.

Lwandamina joined Azam FC on December 3, 2020, and was in charge of the club in the CAF Confederation Cup, which witnessed the outfit crash out of the Second Preliminary Round the after losing to Pyramids FC of Egypt. The Zambian coach parted ways with the club on June 30, 2021.

English tactician Stewart Hall will remain in Azam FC's memories as the most successful coach at the outfit, leading the side's technical bench for two different terms.

He led Azam FC to the 2015 CECAFA Kagame Cup triumph, it was the first regional silverware that Azam FC managed to win.

But Hall left Azam FC after having failed to clinch the then Vodacom Premier League title in his three spells as the side's head coach.

The tactician then joined Sofapaka FC of Kenya where he stayed for about two months before making his way back to Azam FC after the outfit's management had parted ways with Serbian tactician Boris Bunjak who joined the side on August 8, 2012, and stayed until December 30, 2012.

Before moving to Sofapaka FC, Hall joined Azam FC to replace Cameroonian Joseph Omog who guided the club to its first Premier League triumph.

Omog who stayed at Azam FC for about 14 months was fired immediately after Azam FC had succumbed to a 3-0 loss to Sudan's El Merreikh in the return leg of CAF Champions League's First Preliminary Round in Khartoum.

But Omog will also be remembered at Azam FC for having led the outfit to triumph in the 2013/14 Vodacom Premier League. He joined Azam FC in December 2013 and left the outfit in March 2015. Romanian Aristica Cioaba had as well taken charge of Azam FC for two different terms.

He joined the club on January 11, 2017, and exited on November 26, 2018, as the club's management was dismayed by the series of poor results it had notched.

The Romanian's position was taken by Burundian tactician Etienne Ndariyagije who served for two years.

After Ndariyagije had secured the opportunity to coach Tanzania's senior national team 'Taifa Stars', Azam FC's management recalled Cioaba and sealed a one-year agreement with the gaffer but.

Unfortunately, the tactician served for 12 matches in the Mainland Premier League having witnessed his outfit losing 1-0 to Yanga and succumbing to a similar loss to Kinondoni Municipal Council FC.