Building Stadiums is fine, but who will score for Taifa Stars??

DAR ES SALAAM: TANZANIAN football is enjoying one of those beautiful moments when everybody wants to smile, clap and pretend there is no small problem standing quietly in the corner wearing boots.

Our clubs are stronger, richer in ambition and increasingly attractive to talented foreign players who arrive in Dar es Salaam in droves.

They sign contracts, score goals and within three weeks become experts in local traffic, pilau, derby pressure and the mysterious national art of being blamed for everything by rival supporters.

This is progress.

Simba, Yanga, Azam, Singida Black Stars and others need quality if they are to compete seriously in Africa.

Continental football does not respect speeches, slogans or patriotic chest-thumping.

It respects pace, discipline, finishing and defenders who do not treat every corner kick like a surprise birthday party.

But while club football is eating well, one awkward national question is sitting beside the buffet with an empty plate: What exactly are we doing to strengthen Taifa Stars?

The 2026/27 season has already supplied some interesting evidence.

Through Simba’s first four league matches, their seven goals have come from Ivorian Ismail Touré, Congolese Elie Mpanzu, Zambian Clatous Chama, Ivorian Anicet Oura and South African Rushine De Reuck.

Touré has scored twice, Chama twice and the others once each.

In other words, at this early stage, every single Simba league goal has carried a foreign passport.

Over at Yanga, the immigration desk is equally busy. Namibian Peter Shalulile has already scored, timely finishing his dry spell since arrival, cancelling the tsunami of question marks that had started.

DR Congo’s Maxi Nzengeli and Chadrack Boka, as well as Zambia’s Albert Kangwanda have also been finding the net.

Of Yanga’s first 11 league goals, eight came from foreign players.

Local boys Mudathir Yahya, Ibrahim Hamad Bacca and Mohamed Hussein have thankfully reminded us that wazawa goal-scoring has not yet been declared an endangered species.

Elsewhere, Ghanaian Jonathan Sowah has opened his account for Singida Black Stars, while veteran Zambian Obrey Chirwa started Geita Gold’s season by scoring against Mbeya City.

But, hey! Nobody should misunderstand my argument. Please…

These foreigners are doing precisely what they were employed to do.

If you hire Shalulile, Chama, Mpanzu or Kangwanda, you do not expect them to spend Saturday afternoon admiring the clouds above KMC or Major General Isamuhyo stadiums.

You expect goals, assists and trophies.

The question is: Where are our own finishers?

At the moment Tanzanian forwards appear to approach the opposition net with the courtesy of visitors entering somebody’s sitting room.

They knock politely, remove their shoes, look around carefully and then pass the ball sideways.

The foreign striker sees the same goal and behaves as if the goalkeeper owes him money.

That difference matters because Taifa Stars cannot go shopping.

If Simba’s striker is injured, the club can telephone an agent in Abidjan, Lusaka, Kinshasa, Johannesburg or Dakar and soon another gentleman is at Julius Nyerere International Airport holding a club scarf and promising supporters twenty goals.

Taifa Stars cannot do that. The national coach cannot ring Windhoek and say, “Please send Shalulile for AFCON; we shall return him immediately after the quarterfinals.”

Eventually Tanzania must use Tanzanians.

And now that we are renovating stadiums, improving pitches, dressing rooms, lighting and facilities, the question becomes even louder.

Are we building the Taifa Stars team with the same enthusiasm with which we are building its home?

A stadium is like a beautiful suit prepared for a wedding.

The floodlights are the cufflinks, the seats are the buttons, the dressing rooms are the polished shoes and the grass is that expensive perfume people pretend not to notice.

But Taifa Stars is the person wearing the suit.

If the gentleman inside is unfit, nervous and cannot score, even the best tailoring will not rescue him.

He will still enter the reception late while aunties whisper, “The suit is excellent, but who prepared this child?”

This is why club development and national-team development must meet somewhere.

Foreign players should stay.

Let them raise standards.

Let them frighten defenders.

Let them help Tanzanian clubs compete in CAF competitions. But behind every imported striker there must also be a Tanzanian youngster who is learning, playing and progressing.

Not merely warming up until his tracksuit becomes part of the club’s permanent furniture.

Meaningful playing time is critical.

A 20-year-old Tanzanian striker cannot develop through motivational speeches, Instagram graphics and appearing in squad photographs.

He needs competitive minutes.

He needs to miss chances, be shouted at, recover, score, miss again and eventually learn that goalkeepers are not relatives who must be spared embarrassment.

Reserve and youth competitions must therefore become serious production lines.

Academies should provide coaching, nutrition, discipline, education, scouting and regular competitive football.

You cannot keep a promising striker in bubble wrap for three years and suddenly unwrap him when AFCON arrives.

The loan system also needs purpose.

If a youngster cannot start for Simba or Yanga, send him somewhere he will genuinely play.

Not to another club where he sits on another bench with a different sponsor behind him.

A loan should be a classroom, not a sightseeing tour with shin pads.

Clubs should also be praised not merely for winning trophies but for producing excellent Taifa Stars footballers.

Imagine a club proudly announcing: “We won the league, reached a CAF semifinal and produced five national-team regulars.”

Now that is football development.

Authorities, too, should broaden the way success is measured.

By all means inspect the stadium lights, tunnels, toilets and plastic seats. But also count how many Tanzanian Under-23 players are starting Premier League matches.

Count how many local strikers are receiving 1,500 or 2,000 competitive minutes a season.

Track academy graduates. Follow loans.

If we can count every VIP chair, surely, we can count strikers.

And supporters too also have homework.

When a player wears the Taifa Stars shirt, he is no longer Simba, Yanga, Azam or Singida.

He is Tanzania.

A Simba defender should not require approval from Yanga supporters before making a tackle for the country.

A Yanga striker’s Taifa Stars goal should not be taken through club customs before celebration.

For ninety minutes, put the derby in the drawer. Mute that dangerous WhatsApp group and support the national shirt.

The balance is simple. Keep importing quality. But simultaneously grow quality.

Because one day we want a Tanzanian striker to score 25 league goals, collect the Golden Boot and cause the entire country to celebrate without anybody asking for his passport, work permit or arrival date at Terminal Three.

That will be the day we know the kitchen is working.

Until then, enjoy Shalulile, Chama, Mpanzu, Kangwanda, Touré, Oura, Nzengeli, Boka, Sowah, Chirwa and the rest.

They are making our football better.

But remember clubs can buy finished talent; Taifa Stars must grow its own.

When the big international night arrives, nobody will ask the stadium to score.

The floodlights will not mark a striker.

The VIP seats will not make a recovery run.

The freshly painted tunnel will not take a penalty, unless things become so desperate that even the paint volunteers.

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It will be Tanzanian players on that pitch, wearing the national shirt and carrying the national heartbeat.

So yes, let us renovate, polish, inspect and prepare.

But please, while we are preparing the beautiful national outfit, somebody should check whether Taifa Stars has trousers, socks, and, most importantly, a Tanzanian striker who remembers where the net is.