By Attilio Tagalile
The Deputy Minister for Information, Culture and Sports, Joel Bendera spoke for most of us when he called on the Tanzania Football Federation, TFF, to groom all gifted players spotted during the just ended Copa Coco Cola tournament.
The minister was quoted by a local English daily as saying that 110 players were spotted as raw talent waiting to be harnessed by the youth national team technical staff during the tournament.
The minister urged the TFF to create what he described as a conducive environment in which such spotted talent could be polished and later exposed on the international arena.
Bendera being a person who had led the national team, Taifa Stars, in their first ever Africa Nations Cup Finals, AFCON, in Lagos, Nigeria in 1980, certainly knows what he is talking about and the TFF would be best advised to take the minister's word seriously.
In fact, the soccer governing body does not need to look far in order to understand and appreciate the importance of Bendera's advice.
The just ended 2010 World Cup in South Africa brought forth numerous lessons for the world, including Tanzania, and chief among it is that unless a nation looks to its youth, it will never get anywhere in that tournament!
Some soccer gurus are already talking about certain formations having been rendered obsolete by the tournament!
For instance, we are all presently talking about how creative and fantastic Ghanaian players were during the tournament.
But what we don't seem to realize, and conveniently at that, is that the greatness of that team lay in the fact that it was forged on the anvil of juvenile soccer development programme.
Indeed, have we not been told that seven of the players in that team came from the U-20 World Cup winning team in a tournament held in Egypt? And that the rest of the Ghanaian players also came from previous under this age or that age?
In fact, had it not been for that naughty Uruguayan player, it is indisputable that Ghana would have gone all the way to the semi finals, and who knows, they could have even gone to the finals!
Personally, one thing impressed me about the Ghanaian team, something that I did not see in any team, including the World Cup champions, Spain.
It was the Ghanaian players' ability to collect a pass from a colleague has already been tightly marked by his opponent him!
There were several incidents in which a Ghanaian player collected, with ease, a pass from his colleague inspite of being policed behind him by his opponent!
I did not see that ability in the Brazilians, Mexicans, Spainish or Dutch players! That is why to me, Ghana is the team of the future, the team to watch.
The Ghanaian players were able to perform such feats because of one main reason, their skilful ability to control, and with ease, the ball, a quality they acquired because they had started the game together from a very tender age.
If one looks around all World Cup teams that did well in the tournament, you would discover that most of them were fruits of youth soccer development programmes.
Even the eventual World Cup winners, Spain is nothing but the fruition of youth soccer development programme and that is why if one looks at their ages, they are more or less the same.
The Nigerian national team, the Super Eagles did well over fifteen years ago, winning the Olympic Cup during the days of Kanu and company because it had been curved out of the youth development programme.
They performed badly in the World Cup tournament because they had stopped building their team from youth development programmes!
The Nigerians had elected, just as what Tanzania has been doing for the past few years, into getting their players from here and there.
And the end result of that is what we all witnessed during the just ended World Cup tournament, disgrace all over!
For Tanzania, the road to future soccer success lies in what Bendera told the TFF to go, get on board the 110 plus players who have been spotted in the just ended Copa Coca Cola tournament!
The minister appears to have been forced to tell the TFF what he has told them partly because of what has been going on in the so called Tanzania's big guns, Simba and Young Africans.
Instead of the two Dar es Salaam clubs and other premier league teams getting the bulk of their new signings from Copa Coca Cola's talent laden players, they have been busy spending millions on foreign players most of whom are nothing to write home about.
One of the foreign coaches was recently quoted by the media complaining over the TFF's decision to put limitation on the number of foreign players a club sign.
The coach shamelessly said “what I'm going to do with the other foreign players I already have?”.
The point is, if these foreign coaches are good as we are made to believe, then let our clubs give them a challenge by asking them to mould the country's youth talent into winning outfits.
One of the main reasons why Tanzanians have always held former Romanian national (he is currently a US national), Professor Victor Stanculescus is simply because he moulded raw talent into the best team to have ever graced Tanzanian soccer pitches.
The beauty of the Copa Coca Cola talent is that premier league clubs can get them at cheaper price than the kind of money they are presently spending on good for nothing foreign players.
And come to think of it, if these Ghanaian and Nigerian players we want to recruit are so good, why is it that we did not see them in their national teams during the just ended World Cup?
And while we are still in this Copa Cola thing, can someone ask the TFF what became of the players from the three national youth teams that participated in the Coca Cola tournaments twice in South Africa and once in Brazil?
If we cannot take care of players from such youth development programmes then we have no business overseeing soccer development in this country!
The Deputy Minister for Information, Culture and Sports, Joel Bendera spoke for most of us when he called on the Tanzania Football Federation, TFF, to groom all gifted players spotted during the just ended Copa Coco Cola tournament.
The minister was quoted by a local English daily as saying that 110 players were spotted as raw talent waiting to be harnessed by the youth national team technical staff during the tournament.
The minister urged the TFF to create what he described as a conducive environment in which such spotted talent could be polished and later exposed on the international arena.
Bendera being a person who had led the national team, Taifa Stars, in their first ever Africa Nations Cup Finals, AFCON, in Lagos, Nigeria in 1980, certainly knows what he is talking about and the TFF would be best advised to take the minister's word seriously.
In fact, the soccer governing body does not need to look far in order to understand and appreciate the importance of Bendera's advice.
The just ended 2010 World Cup in South Africa brought forth numerous lessons for the world, including Tanzania, and chief among it is that unless a nation looks to its youth, it will never get anywhere in that tournament!
Some soccer gurus are already talking about certain formations having been rendered obsolete by the tournament!
For instance, we are all presently talking about how creative and fantastic Ghanaian players were during the tournament.
But what we don't seem to realize, and conveniently at that, is that the greatness of that team lay in the fact that it was forged on the anvil of juvenile soccer development programme.
Indeed, have we not been told that seven of the players in that team came from the U-20 World Cup winning team in a tournament held in Egypt? And that the rest of the Ghanaian players also came from previous under this age or that age?
In fact, had it not been for that naughty Uruguayan player, it is indisputable that Ghana would have gone all the way to the semi finals, and who knows, they could have even gone to the finals!
Personally, one thing impressed me about the Ghanaian team, something that I did not see in any team, including the World Cup champions, Spain.
It was the Ghanaian players' ability to collect a pass from a colleague has already been tightly marked by his opponent him!
There were several incidents in which a Ghanaian player collected, with ease, a pass from his colleague inspite of being policed behind him by his opponent!
I did not see that ability in the Brazilians, Mexicans, Spainish or Dutch players! That is why to me, Ghana is the team of the future, the team to watch.
The Ghanaian players were able to perform such feats because of one main reason, their skilful ability to control, and with ease, the ball, a quality they acquired because they had started the game together from a very tender age.
If one looks around all World Cup teams that did well in the tournament, you would discover that most of them were fruits of youth soccer development programmes.
Even the eventual World Cup winners, Spain is nothing but the fruition of youth soccer development programme and that is why if one looks at their ages, they are more or less the same.
The Nigerian national team, the Super Eagles did well over fifteen years ago, winning the Olympic Cup during the days of Kanu and company because it had been curved out of the youth development programme.
They performed badly in the World Cup tournament because they had stopped building their team from youth development programmes!
The Nigerians had elected, just as what Tanzania has been doing for the past few years, into getting their players from here and there.
And the end result of that is what we all witnessed during the just ended World Cup tournament, disgrace all over!
For Tanzania, the road to future soccer success lies in what Bendera told the TFF to go, get on board the 110 plus players who have been spotted in the just ended Copa Coca Cola tournament!
The minister appears to have been forced to tell the TFF what he has told them partly because of what has been going on in the so called Tanzania's big guns, Simba and Young Africans.
Instead of the two Dar es Salaam clubs and other premier league teams getting the bulk of their new signings from Copa Coca Cola's talent laden players, they have been busy spending millions on foreign players most of whom are nothing to write home about.
One of the foreign coaches was recently quoted by the media complaining over the TFF's decision to put limitation on the number of foreign players a club sign.
The coach shamelessly said “what I'm going to do with the other foreign players I already have?”.
The point is, if these foreign coaches are good as we are made to believe, then let our clubs give them a challenge by asking them to mould the country's youth talent into winning outfits.
One of the main reasons why Tanzanians have always held former Romanian national (he is currently a US national), Professor Victor Stanculescus is simply because he moulded raw talent into the best team to have ever graced Tanzanian soccer pitches.
The beauty of the Copa Coca Cola talent is that premier league clubs can get them at cheaper price than the kind of money they are presently spending on good for nothing foreign players.
And come to think of it, if these Ghanaian and Nigerian players we want to recruit are so good, why is it that we did not see them in their national teams during the just ended World Cup?
And while we are still in this Copa Cola thing, can someone ask the TFF what became of the players from the three national youth teams that participated in the Coca Cola tournaments twice in South Africa and once in Brazil?
If we cannot take care of players from such youth development programmes then we have no business overseeing soccer development in this country!
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