Bongo drinkers who spend time in bars to watch football are currently a depressed lot, be they adherents of Simba SC or those of Young Africans SC (Yanga). Granted that Yanga had started the season well, for they’ve clinched several trophies at the local front as] Simba struggles even with nondescript NBC Premier League teams.
However, when we come to the international scene, both of these bigtime teams aren’t good. This is the topic that dominates conversations in bars as men partake of their booze at Family, Forest and elsewhere.
Simba has been suffering in the hands of Yanga over the past four season, with no signs that this they’ll ever reawaken and turn tables against the apparently indomitable Jangwani side.
Uncle Kich, who claims to have been a Simba supporter since 1974, has been a depressed man since Simba started to suffer defeats unstoppably since 2000 to date. “Well, we had a bit of solace when we shined more than Yanga in continental competitions; but look now, Yanga have done better than us in the 2025/26 Afcon. It’s embarrassing!”
After three encounters, Simba had ended up with zero points while their archrivals Yanga were boasting four points.
Right now, five encounters down the line, Uncle Kich’s team has claimed a mere two points while Yanga has five.
Tibu, a Simba SC cheerleader in our side of Dar counsels fellow Simba supporters not to lose hope. “The Mnyama is down but not out… Mnyama will rise again...Some years back, there was a match in which we beat Yanga 6-0 but people aren’t talking about it!”
There’s this Simba adherent we all call Doctor, who has no illusion about Simba’s chances of winning anything this season. “It’s common for teams to go down, even in European leagues as well…look at Man-U of the yesteryear and that of today…but as we can all see, it’s going up slowly again,” says Doctor as he refills his glass with beer.
He’s a Simba adherent to the core, but unlike many other Simba supporters, has been hopeful that Yanga would make it to the quarter finals. If Yanga makes to the top in this CAF Champions League, it will boost our position in continental and international rankings.
All hope that Simba would make it to the quarter finals was dashed on February 1 after they allowed Esperance Tunis—against whom they had beaten 2-0 by half time—to recover and equalise, thus earning a miserly one point that would take them nowhere. And that, at the Benjamin Mkapa Stadium. Aibu!
Their 1-1 score versus Angola’s Petro Atletico on February 7 was also inconsequential. The Msimbazi Reds are practically out of the race—to the curious jubilation of Yanga fans who are consistently jeering: Simba hamna timu! On the same day, Morocco’s AS FAR silenced Yanga with a 1-0 in a goal scored in the dying minutes of the grueling match that started at 4pm. Doctor wasn’t one of the majority of Simba fans at Family who celebrated Yanga’s loss.
“That’s the end of the road for Yanga also—they’re, like us going nowhere with their miserable five points,” said a happy mhudumu, Fatuma, a Simba fan.
Disturbing, but that’s a typical M’bongo for you when it comes to Simba-Yanga rivalry. Doctor can keep his patriotism to himself!
