Football analysts fault Stars coach technical plan

Dar es Salaam. Football analysts in the country have faulted a technical approach applied by the national football team (Taifa Stars) head coach, Kim Poulsen, against Equatorial Guinea that led to Stars miss ing the chance of qualifying for the Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) in Cameroon next year.

Taifa Stars lost 1-0 in the dying minutes of the encounter held at the Malabo Stadium, shattering the dream of Tanzania featuring in the competition for the third time. Tanzania first qualified for the 1980 Afcon in Lagos, Nigeria, and in Cairo, Egypt in 2019.

Captain Emilio Nsue Lopez struck in the 90th minute at the Estadio de Malabo as Equatorial Guinea beat Tanzania 1-0 to qualify for next year’s Afcon finals.

Speaking with The Citizen yesterday, Ally Mayay said Poulsen applied a defensive formation that did not work as it made the players get exhausted almost throughout the game. Mayay said Equatorial Guinea dominated the game from the start to make Taifa Stars goalkeeper Aishi Manula to save many attacks.

“The only solution to defend is to dominate the game and apply counter attacks. What was done by the Taifa Stars players was not expected by many football stakeholders,” said Mayay.

Another football analyst Joseph Kanakamfumu also blamed Taifa Stars’ technical approach despite the fact the team was made up with the best players.

Kanakamfumu said the players who featured in the encounter are experienced ones because they have played many international matches and he wondered why they did not win the game.

“It appears that there was a technical problem somewhere as most of the players know how to compete in away encounters, especially defenders and midfielders who are now in the African Champions League with Simba.

“Goalkeeper Aishi Manula and his defenders, Shomari Kapombe, Mohamed Hussein, Erasto Nyoni, Kennedy Juma, Jonas Mkude and Mzamiru Yasin are featuring for Simba and have played very tough games.

“They have a good coordination, but in the match they looked tired after defending many attacks before allowing Equatorial Guinea to score in the dying minutes,” said Kanakamfumu.

He suggested that Poulsen should have applied a defensive game technique by using one striker upfront, five midfielders and defenders, who would have stopped their opponents to make many attacks in the encounter.

“Using three strikers upfront in an away match is to allow your opponents to dominate the game and that is what happened as Equatorial Guinea dominated more than the half of the game with Manula becoming a hero for making many saves,” he said.

Tanzania targeted to get at least a point that could have given them the hopes of making it to the Afcon finals as they remain with the final match against Libya in their group J, but the defeat means their journey of making back to back Afcon qualifications has come to an end.

With the victory, Equatorial Guinea have moved to nine points while Tanzania remain third with four points. Their final match against Libya in Dar es Salaam will merely be a formality as Equatorial Guinea and Tunisia have already qualified from Group J.

Early into the game, Manula thwarted the first danger from the home side, pushing Emilio Lopez’s well struck effort from the right against the crossbar.

In the seventh minute, the goalkeeper once again kept his side in the game, parrying away a well struck swerving freekick from Jose Machin Dicombo while Pedro Obiang volleyed the rebound over.

The home side kept the pressure and had another chance in the 17th minute, but Salomon Ondo couldn’t put enough power to his shot from the edge of the area, the keeper collecting calmly.

Tanzania didn’t have many chances but the two they had were close ones. In the 55th minute Simon Msuva tried to catch the keeper off his line with a crafty shot from distance, but it went wide.