How Taifa Stars Defeated Brazil at Football
- Category: The Comrade
- Date 27-06-2010
- 614 views
If we may ask; how did Taifa Stars miss the opportunity to play in the ongoing World Cup championships? Bongo has a great soccer squad that would have earned a star position if they had not been shy on participating in the world’s biggest soccer hex ever to be played on the African soil.
The Comrade nonetheless has a lot to grumble about as regards the recent visit of the Brazilian football squad, Seleção Brasileira, for a friendly match in Dar es Salaam on 7th June 2010. It is not enough that the match was poorly attended even if President Jakaya Kikwete turned up for the historic event. The obvious happened and Brazil floored Bongo 5 – 1 in her final World Cup warm-up match at Tanzania’s main stadium.
For all intents and purposes, this Brazil – Bongo match should have been an East African event, and Bongo should not have monopolised it. You want to say that is was East African indeed since CECAFA nominated Uganda’s Muhammad Ssegonga for referee plus Burundi’s Desire Gahungu and Rwanda’s Felicien Kabanda as assistants.
Yet, The Comrade wanted to see a lot of publicity and promos in Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi, urging all East Africans to support and attend the historic friendly match. Most able citizens in this region simply learnt about the event when all was over, just as the media carried out a post-mortem of the world class event that was selfishly hidden from neighbours. How could you host the best soccer team on planet earth and at the same time have a near-empty stadium?
Planners and marketers should look beyond their noses and aim to maximise proceeds and broaden the customer base. Why can’t people think outside the box? Is this not Bongo? A regional marketing strategy in the entire East Africa would possibly have widened the market for the entry tickets – many of which remained unsold – and ultimately yielded greater dividends for the transport sector as well as the hotel industry. There would not have been crowds flocking in certainly but there would still have been benefits anyhow.
For one, The Comrade has never seen the Brazilians at close range playing; only television images! He knows, nevertheless, that Brazil had won the Kombe la Dunia twice, long before present-day Tanzania came into existence, and has since taken the Cup five times – an unmatched record in World Cup history. The most successful national football team in the history of the World Cup, Brazil won in 1958, 1962, 1970, 1994, and 2002, and is currently ranked as No. 1 team by FIFA. Brazil hosted the FIFA World Cup in 1950 and will host it again in 2014. That is not a team Bongo had to host quietly, honestly? We all wanted to attend, moreover as East Africans.
Let us not cry over spilt milk though. Our first line of thought in this commentary was that Taifa Stars deserved a place in the World Cup tournament because they humiliated Seleção Brasileira with a whole goal during the Dar es Salaam match. This was similar to scoring a goal against the whole world. Yes, it was a goal against the greatest national team in football history. Since Brazil had indeed been drawn in group G which the ‘Group of Death’ in the 2010 World Cup, it follows that Bongo also played in the ‘Group of Death’ and scored against Brazil as did Korea during their first match.
They say, "The English invented football, the Brazilians perfected it”. We can now say, “The English invented it, the Brazilians perfected it, the Wabongo nearly stole the show”.
By Venansio Ahabwe
Source: The Comrade, The Guardian on Sunday