Let the World Cup sleep — Twiga Stars are about to kick the door open in Morocco

DAR ES SALAAM: LADIES and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, chairpersons of football WhatsApp groups and honourable citizens who have never kicked anything heavier than a bedroom slipper: The 2026 FIFA World Cup is over.

It is finished. Kaput.

The trophy has been lifted, the confetti has fallen, the players have cried, smiled, swapped shirts and disappeared into private jets with sunglasses large enough to qualify as aircraft parts.

The stadium lights have dimmed, the television graphics have been packed away and most of the world has moved on.

Tanzania, however, has not.

More precisely, the Republic of Wachambuzi, that proud, noisy and entirely imaginary nation of armchair analysts, radio callers and tactical philosophers has refused to sign the death certificate.

In that republic, a final whistle is never the end.

It is only the opening bell for a national inquiry, preferably conducted at high volume, with three callers speaking at once and one presenter pretending to be in control while silently wondering whether his headache tablets are still in the drawer.

For days, our sports programmes have resembled emergency sittings of the United Nations Security Council, minus the diplomacy, the translators and the neckties.

One analyst insists the winger should have pressed higher. Another says the midfield block was “emotionally unstable”.

A third, a man who has not jogged since President Mkapa’s first term, demonstrates gegenpressing with a water bottle, a tea flask and the studio technician’s phone.

He nudges the phone three inches to the left and declares, solemnly, “This is where Argentina lost the match.”

Nobody asks why a man who gets winded climbing two stairs is lecturing professional athletes about intensity. That, apparently, would be disrespectful to the science of football.

The Republic of Wachambuzi has no borders, yet it is everywhere.

Its national bird is the armchair expert. Its currency is confidence unsupported by evidence. Its anthem opens with the immortal line,“ I told you.

Nobody remembers when he told us. His own wife recalls him predicting, at most, a draw.

This is wonderfully, unmistakably Tanzanian.

Football turns ordinary citizens into visiting professors of low blocks, inverted full-backs and expected goals, as though everybody spent the weekend at a FIFA seminar instead of arguing over whether the goat soup had enough salt.

But surely there comes a time to let the World Cup rest in peace.

This tournament has already had a funeral, a memorial service, three autopsies and countless postmortems conducted by men holding toothpicks outside chipsi mayai stalls.

Enough, jameni!

There is another football story waiting and this one is wearing Tanzanian colours.

As we speak, Twiga Stars are in Morocco for the 2026 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations that kicks off in Rabat Today, 26 July and runs until the final on 16 August.

It is the largest edition in the competition’s history, with 16 nations divided into four groups.

In short, Africa has expanded the table, added more chairs, and told everyone to bring their boots.

Our girls have landed in Group B alongside South Africa, Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso, countries that are not travelling merely to photograph the stadiums, taste the mint tea and ask whether Casablanca has good biryani.

South Africa will not politely move aside because Tanzania has nice songs. Ivory Coast will not say, “Please, after you, sister.”

Burkina Faso will not arrive carrying welcome flowers. This is a tournament, not a wedding committee.

The schedule is a serious business.

The opening match brings Algeria and Senegal together at the Rabat Olympic Stadium, while hosts Morocco face Kenya later the same evening at Moulay El Hassan Stadium.

Tomorrow it will be Twiga Stars’ turn when they face South Africa’s Banyana Banyana, at Moulay El Hassan Stadium.

The group stage then rolls on; the quarter-finals arrive on 8 and 9 August; the semifinals are set for 12 August in Rabat; Casablanca hosts playoff matches on 13 August.

The final will crown Africa’s champions in Rabat on 16 August.

At stake is not only continental glory and a winner’s prize of US$1 million; this tournament is also part of the road to the 2027 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Brazil.

Four African teams can qualify directly through WAFCON, while two more may continue through the FIFA Play-Off Tournament.

Suddenly those quarterfinals are not just football matches. They are border posts on the road to Brazil and nobody wants to reach the counter only to discover they forgot the passport.

That is the point the Republic of Wachambuzi must now grasp.

The next big football story is not necessarily the one being replayed from overseas in slow motion; it may be the one in front of us, wearing our colours, carrying our flag and asking, politely but firmly, to be taken seriously before success arrives with a brass band.

Twiga Stars will need discipline, organisation and the sort of mental steel that does not evaporate after one long ball and a loud shout from the opposition bench

They will need planning, belief, support and, above all, attention that begins before the miracle, not after it has already posed for photographs.

Because Tanzania has a habit. Before the goal, we ask, “Who are these people?”

After the goal, everyone is suddenly a relative: a former classmate, a distant cousin, one man who once sold her a pencil, all appearing on television to announce, “We knew from childhood she was special.”

Did you support her?

“No, but we observed her potential.”

Support is not noise-generated once victory is already standing at the door wearing perfume.

It is learning the players’ names now, following the fixtures now, arguing about the formation now and demanding proper preparation before the first whistle rather than proper credit after the last one.

Women’s football is not a side dish beside the main meal. It is football, full stop.

Same pitch, same tackles, same heartbreak, same joy, same anthem capable of sending grown adults searching the ceiling because “something has entered the eye”.

If the ball crosses the line, nobody asks whether the net is male or female. It shakes all the same.

Here, at last, is a proper assignment for the Republic of Wachambuzi. We need not abolish it.

Without it, radio stations would have to play music, barbershops would fall silent, and WhatsApp groups would be reduced to discussing school fees and missing chargers.

We simply need to redirect the national energy.

Let the analysts examine Twiga Stars with the same seriousness they reserve for European clubs whose stadia they have never seen except on television.

Let them argue about substitutions until the tea goes cold.

Let them draw arrows, circles and mysterious rectangles.

But let the arrows point towards our own team for once. And let the analysis carry respect, because Twiga Stars are not in Morocco as decoration.

They are carrying a flag, a dream and the expectations of a country that too often discovers patriotism only after the final whistle, when the vuvuzelas have already been borrowed and the speeches are being drafted in a hurry.

So, dear citizens of Wachambuzi: Keep your tactical boards, your dramatic pauses, your suspicious looks towards referees and your habit of beginning every sentence with, “The problem with African football is…

” Keep all of it. But turn the spotlight towards Twiga Stars.

ALSO READ: Tanzania maps out AFCON 2027 plan

Watch them. Learn their names. Talk about them before they win. And if they do something special in Morocco, please, just this once, do not clear your throat and announce, “I told you.”

Just clap, wave the flag and admit the truth: sometimes the greatest football story is not the one we keep replaying.

It is the one we finally decide to watch.