Basing on Simba’s lacklustre performance to drop points with incredible frequency, most of the soccer fans never thought the Msimbazi side might change their trend to bounce into title challenge.
For the past three back-to-back seasons, Simba has never been a side that was to be trusted as serious contenders for the Mainland premiership title.
The Dar side won their last league title in 2011/2012 and since then the team has been in serious troubles both on the field of play as well as at clubhouse. Yanga won the league title last season taking over from Azam FC and the holders looked well set for title retention until recent incidents that posed serious doubt over their title grip credibility.
Known for high frequency of changing their coaches, Simba dumped England’s Dylan Kerr to open the gate for Ugandan Jackson Mayanja as a substitute to lead the side.
Yanga kicked off the second half of the season miserably as they crashed at the hands of Coastal Union in what has been termed as the biggest upset for the ongoing season.
Whether Simba had genuine reasons to offload the English coach or otherwise, Mayanja has so far proved to be the mentor who has revived hopes for the Simba team and their fans.
However, Kerr lost only two games and kept the team on track despite trailing by six points behind Yanga and Azam at the end of the first half of the season. Possibly he would have kept the team on track as well, who knows?
Simba gathered pace with four unbeaten matches soon after Mayanja took charge and maintained the pace up to the kick off the second half of the season.
Simba’s charge for title bid has been highly boosted by lackluster performance displayed by their archrivals Yanga who dropped four points in the two matches they played recently.
A shocking 2-0 goals comprehensive defeat at the hands of Coastal Union last week and the subsequent 2-2 draw with unheralded Tanzania Prisons in Mbeya during the midweek fixtures has devastated Yanga. In absence of anther title challengers Azam who were not in action during the previous two rounds, this was a huge opportunity for Yanga to open massive gap on the standings table.
However, the misfortune culminated into the team’s disarray to lose title grip and spice up charge for Simba to capitalize on their default. The tight defence that conceded paltry five goals in 15 appearances, proved to be highly porous to concede four goals in 180 minutes of regulation play.
Simba are just a point adrift of their archrivals Yanga after 17 appearances to completely change the picture in the title pursuance. The real pressure is now mounting on Yanga who never used to experience this atmosphere for long spells.
With Azam back into the premiership action this weekend, then it is very possible the title contention will be tight to keep followers spellbound.
However, ever since the new premiership franchise for mainland was introduced in 2008/9 season, no team has won the scudetto in back-to-back pattern. Ends
Mainland premier soccer league standings
Teams P W D L GF GA GD Pts
01. Yanga 17 12 4 01 38 09 29 40
02. Simba 17 12 3 02 32 10 22 39
03. Azam 15 12 3 00 30 10 20 39
04. Mtibwa 17 09 5 03 20 11 09 32
05. Mwadui 17 08 4 05 19 15 04 28
06. Stand 16 09 1 06 17 13 04 28
07. Prisons 16 08 4 04 18 17 01 28
08. Toto 17 04 6 06 15 21 -06 18
09. Mgambo 17 04 5 08 15 22 -07 17
10. Kagera 17 04 3 10 10 20 -10 15
11. Mbeya 16 03 5 08 13 21 -08 14
12. Ndanda 16 02 7 07 14 18 -04 13
13. Coastal 16 02 7 06 10 17 -07 13
…………..Relegation borderline…………………..
14. JKT 16 03 4 09 16 27 -11 13
15. Majimaji 17 03 4 10 10 31 -21 13
16. A.Sports 17 03 3 10 05 19 -14 12
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