by Philip Richards

Taifa Stars disappoint at AFCON 2019
The national team’s appearance at the AFCON finals in Egypt failed to live up to optimistic expectations as they went crashing out at the first-round stage conceding 7 goals and only scoring two, the latter com­ing in their 3-2 defeat to rivals Kenya. Team captain Mbwana Samatta conceded that “our best is not good enough. We still have a long way to go. It’s not good enough at all for this level.” Other well-known com­mentators such as ex-South African international Shaun Bartlett was quoted (Daily News, 5/7/19) as saying that too many defensive mistakes were made and that the team need to learn how to re-group quickly after losing the ball. Despite having little time to prepare – a 20 team domestic league was still competing up to the end of May and there was only one pre-AFCON friendly – the axe fell swiftly on coach Emmanuel Amunike shortly after the Stars’ exit from the tournament. Tanzanian Football Federation held an emergency meeting to announce Etienne Ndayiragije, the Burundian coach of Azam FC, to take up the role on an interim basis.

Tokyo Olympics 2020
The Tanzania Olympic Committee (TOC) and the Ministry of Information, Culture, Arts and Sports recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Japanese city of Nagai to host Team Tanzania in preparing for next year’s Olympic Games in Tokyo. The Japanese city will provide various training facilities and programmes. However, it was reported (Daily News, 2/8/19) that this is as “wake up call” for Tanzanian athletes to earn qualification for the Games as only a small number have already done so.

by Philip Richards

National football team through to AFCON 2019 finals
The national team, Taifa Stars, led by captain Mbwana Samatta (see article below) reached the finals of the African Cup of Nations (AFCON) 2019 finals later this year by securing a superb 3-0 win over the Uganda Cranes in front of a packed home crowd at the National Stadium, Dar es Salaam. This is the first time they have reached the finals of a major competition since 1980. In attendance at the game was President Magufuli who lauded the team’s efforts as part of the post-match celebrations (see picture below).

Goals from Simon Msuva, Erasto Nyomi and Aggrey Morris ensured that they achieved second spot in the qualifying group, behind Uganda Cranes themselves, who will join Taifa Stars in Egypt for the 24-team final stages taking place between 21 June and 19 July.

They have been drawn in Group C at the finals, and will compete with Algeria, Senegal and Kenya for a second-round berth.

More broadly, Tanzania has recently moved up 6 places in the FIFA global rankings to 131st. We wish the team every success in the finals in the summer, and hope to report further positive news in the next edition.

Captain leads by example – on and off the field

At 26 years of age, Mbwana Ally Samatta is one of the few Tanzanian footballers to make it in Europe, currently playing as striker for Belgian side Genk and captaining Tanzania’s national team, (reports BBC Sport website (6/11/18)). Having moved to Genk from Congolese side TP Mazembe in 2016, the number 10, who started his career with Simba SC, has become a positive influence both on and off the field in Tanzania.

On the field, he has recently led his country to their first AFCON finals for 28 years (see previous article). However, he has also been voted Tanzania’s most influential young person, encouraging young aspiring sportspeople to focus on education and schooling as well as cultivating their talent.

Samatta has registered 57 goals in 142 games for the Belgian club across four seasons, and with 20 goals thus far is currently the top-scorer in the Belgian top league in the 2018-2019 season. Genk look likely to win the league and earn automatic qualification for Champions League football next season.

His future may lie elsewhere, however, as Samatta has reportedly attracted the interest of larger European clubs, including Cardiff City, Leicester City and Everton of the English Premier League. We will watch his development and proud representation of his country abroad with great interest.

A short video of Samatta being interviewed is available on the BBC Sport website at https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/av/africa/46030892.

by Philip Richards

Football

Reflecting the rapid rise of women’s football globally, Tanzania is no exception. Whilst the men of Taifa Stars languish in the lower reaches of the FIFA rankings, the women of Kilimanjaro Queens are making some headlines. The team that represents mainland women’s football has made the news recently after some high-profile tournament wins including the CECAFA Women Challenge cup, a regional five-nation tournament that was played on a round-robin format in Kigali, Rwanda. The win earned the plaudits of President John Magufuli and the team now move onto the inaugural East African Community Games which starts mid-August in Bujumbura, Burundi with the Queens opening their campaign with a fixture against Kenya. (Daily News).

On the men’s front, Dar based Simba FC won the mainland Premier League in May despite losing 0-1 to Kagera Sugar in the final game. The Citizen reported that the trophy was handed over by President Magufuli who was visiting the National Stadium to attend a sporting event for the first time since he became President.

At national level, Taifa Stars have a new head coach in former Nigeria winger Emmanuel Amuneke as the new head coach of the national team. His first competitive game in charge of the senior Taifa Stars will be their 2019 Africa Cup of Nations qualifier in Uganda in September. The latest FIFA rankings places them at 140th in the world, with Tunisia the highest ranked African team (24th) and France owning top spot. Amuneke, 47, replaces local coach Salum Mayanga who had been in charge of Tanzania since last year. (BBC Sport website).

by Philip Richards

XXI Commonwealth Games, Gold Coast, Australia
TA119 reported that Team Tanzania were sending 16 hopeful athletes to the 21st Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast, Australia, with the country being represented in athletics, boxing, swimming and table tennis. Unfortunately, the performance was a disappointment as no medals were brought back home, continuing a trend as this is the 3rd consecutive Commonwealth Games without a medal, the last one being won in Melbourne in 2006 (Daily News, 16/4/18).

Particularly disappointing was the performance of the men’s and women’s marathon runners, with only two of them managing to com­plete the race. Although much attention was given in the global media to the Scottish runner Callum Hawkins who collapsed 2km out from the tape in the men’s race, what may have gone largely unnoticed was that two Tanzanian athletes were also overcome by the hot race conditions; Saidi Juma Makula collapsed a few metres from the finish and Stephano Huche Gwando was placed in a wheelchair after completing the race (BBC Sport website 15/4/18). TA wishes them both a speedy recovery.

At the time of going to press, there was little official comment or post­mortem into the underperformance or what lessons can be learned from participation.

by Philip Richards

Focus on Commonwealth Games 2018
In April this year, some of Tanzania’s Commonwealth Games “greats”, including Filbert Bayi, carried the Queens Baton on its journey through the streets of Dar. In doing so, they sought to inspire young Tanzanians preparing for the 21st Commonwealth games to be held in the Gold Coast, Australia in April 2018, and to set the bar for hopeful athletes to emulate past success.

Filbert Bayi has held the Commonwealth Games 1500m record for 43 years, since the Christchurch 1974 Games. He led from the start and commanded victory over the home crowd favourite, John Walker. In doing so, Bayi set a new world record and changed the tactics of middle-distance running.

Athletics Tanzania announced that their athletes will set up camp in November in Lushoto, Tanga. Bayi himself is quoted as saying that whilst they do not lack talent and potential, unless they prepare well, Tanzania’s athletes will return home empty handed. He singled out Emmanuel Giniki (5000 metres) and Alphonse Simbu (Marathon, Bronze at this year’s IAAF World Championships in London) as hopefuls for medals. However, there is a suggestion that Simbu may skip Gold Coast 2018 in order to prepare for the London Marathon where he will hope to improve on the creditable 5th place in the 2017 race; if this happens, it will clearly hurt the nation’s hopes.

The other sports where Tanzania will look to do well are in boxing, swimming and table tennis. This has been helped by the inter-governmental “sports diplomacy” initiative whereby the country has secured support from leading nations in each sports area in order to raise performance. In table tennis, the country sent 5 players out to a 3-month training camp in Beijing in November underwritten by the Chinese government. Under a similar scheme, it is hoped that athletes will train in Ethiopia and boxers in Cuba as part of their preparation. Tanzania is being represented by 4 swimmers including Sonia Tumiotto who won 14 gold medals in this year’s Africa Swimming Federation (Cana) Zone 3 Championships, and who studies and trains at the St Felix School in Southwold, Suffolk (see TA 117).

Unfortunately, it would appear unlikely that Tanzania will be represented in the Commonwealth Games Paralympics as they failed to attend any qualifying events.

Juma Mohammed Hamisi, who lost his leg in a bus accident and now plays for Tanzania’s junior wheelchair tennis national team, was featured in the UK Guardian. The team qualified for the wheelchair Tennis World Cup in Italy, but were sadly unable to attend for financial reasons.

by Philip Richards

Athletics
The London Marathon is a much loved and anticipated event on the UK athletics calendar which attracts top athletes from around the world, but the upcoming 2017 event in April could see Tanzania’s top runner missing. At the time of going to press, Alphonce Simbu has days left to obtain a UK visa which, as reported by The Citizen, has been left too late because of training commitments. An urgent application is apparently being made via South Africa. Simbu won the Mumbai Marathon earlier this year, so let us hope that the wheels of inter-country cooperation work in his favour, and that we see him hitting London’s roads this year.
[STOP PRESS – Alphonce was able to compete and finished in 5th place behind three Kenyans and an Ethiopian runner]

Swimming

Hilal Hemed Hilal, Tanzania’s top male swimmer, has been recognised for his success and development by being awarded a scholarship by FINA (swimming’s world governing body) to Thailand for a year. Hilal, who performed well at the Rio Olympics in 2016 by winning one of the heats of the 50m freestyle, will seek an additional year at the Thai camp if he posts improvements during his initial stay (The Citizen reports). As swimming infrastructure in Tanzania needs investment to comply with global standards, many promising swimmers are forced to seek scholarships overseas at educational colleges (such as Saint Felix School in Southwold, UK where several Tanzanian swimmers study) but this is the first time that a Tanzanian has been awarded a scholarship by FINA.

Football
Taifa Stars, the national team, recently posted two wins in friendly matches against Botswana (2-0) and Burundi (2-1) which must be encouraging for the new coach Salum Mayanga who replaced Charles Boniface Mkwasa at the helm earlier this year after failing to qualify for any major tournaments. These wins may have helped move the team slightly up the FIFA rankings to 135th, but there is some way to go before the position of 65th in 1995 is equalled or surpassed. The focus is now on preparing for the 2018 African Nations Championship (CHAN) in Kenya, and the main 2019 African Nations Cup (AFCON) in 2019 in Cameroon. The first game for the CHAN tournament is against Rwanda in July. For the 2019 AFCON tournament, the team has been drawn in qualifying Group L with Uganda, Cape Verde and Lesotho.

by Philip Richards

Rio Olympics 2016

Tanzania’s delegation to the 2016 Rio Olympic Games in August will comprise of seven athletes, reports Daily News (July 2016). The country will be represented by 4 track-and-field athletes who will compete in the marathon, two swimmers and a Judoka. TOC Secretary General Filbert Bayi named the marathon athletes as Fabiano Joseph (men), Said Makula (men), Alphonce Felix Simbu (men) and Sara Ramadhan (women). The other three athletes who have booked their tickets to Rio are swimmers Hilal Hilal Hemed and Magdalena Moshi, both to compete in the 50m freestyle category and Andrew Mlugu in judo.

Although seven is a small number, it is an improvement on the numbers sent to London 2012. However, it continues to be disappointing that so relatively few athletes are competing given the obvious potential, especially when neighbouring Kenya is sending around 100 athletes. Furthermore, boxing is not represented as it was in 2012 due to financial difficulties experienced in sending boxers to qualifying events.
Tanzania has failed to win Olympic medal since the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, where the country won 2 silvers – Bayi himself in the steeplechase as well as long-distance runner Suleiman Nyambui.

Despite the challenges, let us wish Team Tanzania well!

STOP PRESS: The stand-out performance among Tanzania’s Olympic team was undoubtedly Alphonce Felix Simbu in the men’s marathon. His time of two hours and eleven minutes earned him fifth place, two and a half minutes behind the race winner, Eliud Kichoge of Kenya.

Swimming
Even if Tanzanian swimmers do not return home from Rio, the sport is poised for brighter future following efforts by some schools and stake­holders to groom talent and find quality coaches. A good example is the ongoing swimming summer camp run by Dar es Salaam Swimming Club, and conducted by experts from Dubai-based Hamilton Aquatics. (Daily News)

Football
Whilst the eyes of the world have inevitably been on Euro 2016 in France, congratulations must go to Young Africans who sealed a 26th domestic title with two matches to go, after beating Mbeya City 2-0 at the Sokoine Memorial Stadium in Mbeya in July. (The Citizen)

by Philip Richards

At the risk of appearing to bring gloomy news in this issue on the sporting front, I would request readers to contribute any positive sporting stories to me for future publication (see back of issue for my email address). There must be some out there but I’m finding it difficult to dig them up! – Phil

Athletics
Tanzania athletes continue to disappoint on the global stage. At the World Athletics Championship in Beijing, the country’s contingent of marathon runners finished 12th, 27th and 42nd with one not finishing the course. The post-mortem in the Tanzanian media again points the finger of blame at inadequate preparation for global competition, rather than the quality of the athletes per se. Headlines like “Tanzania – Stop This Mess in Athletics Once and For All, Please” (Daily News, 28/8/15) sums up the frustration in the country, especially when neighbours such as Kenya and Uganda appear to be thriving or at least on the upward curve of improvement.

Football

Taifa Stars, the national mens’ team, are already out of the FIFA World Cup 2018, after a painful 9-2 aggregate defeat over 2 legs to the “Desert Foxes” of Algeria in the qualifying round. Slightly better news in terms of qualification towards the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations; the team currently hold third spot in Group G behind group leaders Eqypt, but interim coach Charles Boniface Mkwasa will be encouraged by his team’s performance against Nigeria who held the Super Eagles to a 0-0 draw in Dar in September. The next game is away against Chad in March 2016.

by Philip Richards

Athletics
Tanzania’s elite athletes are eagerly preparing for 2 significant events this year and hoping to improve the country’s medal record in recent times. First, the World Athletics Championships will take place in Beijing in August. Following that, the All Africa Games will be held in Congo-Brazzaville in September (which happens to be the 50th anniver­sary of the Games being held in the country who first hosted it in 1965).

Ismail Juma (5,000m), Alphonce Felix (10,000m), Ezekiel Ngimba and Fabiano Joseph (both marathon) have already run the necessary quali­fying times in recent events and are expected to travel to both events, and other athletes in some shorter distances are also hoping to make qualification times (The Guardian, 14/7/15).

To help them achieve their goal, the sport has received an injection of Tsh 10m from TANAPA (Tanzania National Parks Authority).

Football
Gloomy news continues on the Tanzanian national men’s football scene. After presiding over a string of defeats in the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations qualifying round, most recently a 0-3 defeat at home to Uganda, Mart Nooij, the Dutch coach of Taifa Stars, has been sacked after 14 months in charge (BBC Sport website 22/6/15). It was reported that the team and coach were booed throughout the Uganda match and Nooij had to be shielded from angry fans by tight security (CCTV-Africa.com).

Yanga Sports assistant coach Charles Boniface Mkwasa now acts as interim coach whilst a permanent successor is found. The team has been drawn against Malawi in the opening 2-leg qualifying round in October for the 2018 FIFA World Cup; there remains a long journey ahead if the team are to have any chance of making the finals in Russia – if it hap­pens there of course….

Unfortunately the women’s national team have not been faring much better as their under 20’s team went down 4-0 to Zambia in a qualifying game for the 2016 World Cup in Papua New Guinea.

by Philip Richards

Cross Country
Five Tanzanian athletes took part in the world cross-country championships held in Beijing in late March. Hopes were raised that the lean spell since the last time the country won a medal – 1991 when Andrew Sambu triumphed at the Antwerp Championship in Belgium – could end. Whilst there were no medals, the team finished a respectable sixth position in a competition which attracted 410 athletes from 51 nations with Ismail Juma one of the better performing athletes. The post mortem will again focus on the need for more adequate preparation time. (The Guardian 30/3/15)

Football
The drive to find and develop world class players of the future has been strengthened, thanks to a ground-breaking deal worth TSh 16bn between the National Social Security Fund (NSSF) and Spain’s football giants Real Madrid to construct an ultra-modern sports complex in Kigamboni, on the outskirts of Dar es Salaam. (The Citizen, 27/1/15)

NSSF director general, Ramadhan Dau revealed that the construction of the NSSF Sports Centre would get underway in the next four weeks. The NSSF-Real Madrid Sports Academy project is the second in the country after the Kidongo Chekundu academy being constructed by Symbion Power and English Premier League side, Sunderland FC.

Not so good news for the national side Taifa Stars who have fallen to 107th in the latest FIFA rankings (Daily News 10/4/15). The next goal is to qualify for the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations which is a tough group with Nigeria and Egypt (45th and 51st respectively in the current rankings) included, along with Chad (151st).

Cricket
The senior national cricket team’s delivered a lacklustre performance in this year’s ICC Africa Twenty20 Division 1 Qualifiers in South Africa, which brought together the top six associate members in the continent: Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Namibia, Tanzania and Uganda.

Namibia and Kenya, who finished in the top two spots of the tournament, have secured qualification for the World Twenty20 Qualifiers in Ireland and Scotland later this year, where the top six teams will qualify for the 2016 ICC World Twenty20 finals in India. Tanzania finished last after suffering defeat in all matches to now face relegation to the ICC Africa Twenty20 Division 2 Qualifiers. An anonymous player is quoted as citing lack of competitive friendlies, financial backing, and throwing talented but inexperienced players into high profile tournaments too quickly, as some areas that needed to be addressed by management. (Guardian, 3/4/15)