TECHNICAL disputation tinged with fan sentiments has been opened up in relation to remarks by Simba SC head coach Fadlu Davids that the side still lacks a killer striker, a player who can rise to a fitting occasion to change the game by an ingenious strike to take three points – or one.

The debate centers simultaneously on two areas: whether there is such a player as a killer striker who unfailingly rescues the team when the occasion demands it, and indeed, such players, or at least one player, are not available at the Msimbazi Street-based side’s lineup.

An auxiliary parameter was a pre-existing impression that there is a targeted player for that role.

The latter presumption, in particular, raises whether pundits or fans say is right, that the remarks reflected interest in local midfield maestro Feisal Salum, who has admittedly never left the Msimbazi Street side's radar since his tempestuous transfer from Young Africans SC to Azam FC.

As the coach (pictured) did not say anything of the sort, this remains an assumption, but it is unclear if there was an external player the coach wanted and did not obtain, or a fitting replacement.

At least two players from the Msimbazi Street side have the profile of game changers, but the coach overlooked their presence.

One likely game changer is Neo Maema, the 29-year-old ex-Mamelodi Sundowns striker and skipper of the South African side in this year’s African Nations Championship (CHAN) 2024 finals, for the reason that players given the captain’s badge are often game changers, like Mohammed Hussein's intricate overlaps enabling goals, or Shomari Kapombe’s surprising upfront positioning that changed Tanzania's Taifa Stars game against Mauritania.

An online celebration of a goal gained from an AI overview says that Kapombe's ‘ingenious’ CHAN 2024 goal was a skillful, 89th-minute strike against Mauritania in the 2024 CHAN tournament that secured a crucial 1-0 victory for co-hosts Tanzania, positioning them to advance to the knockout stages. This was a solitary positioning decision by a full back. 

If this narration was not enough, this unsigned AI narrative proceeds to assert that the veteran defender's goal was described as world-class, demonstrating his predatory instinct and clinical finishing after receiving a clever pass from Iddi Selemani ‘Nado’, and it was a game-changer in the fullest description of the term.

The AI entry illustrates ‘details of the goal’ that, in terms of time, it was: 89th minute, in the final minute of regulation time.

Again, in terms of the technical assist, it was by Iddi ‘Nado’, who provided a ‘clever through ball’ to Kapombe, while regarding the finishing, it says Kapombe pounced like a true poacher and calmly finished past the Mauritania goalkeeper, Abderrahmane Sarr.

Then the clincher, on the significance of the goal that sealed a vital 1-0 win for Tanzania, giving them six points in Group B, thereby propelling them to the quarterfinals. 

It would have been interesting to follow through with that analysis, but what is indicated there is that it takes two to tango, that is, create a great moment and follow it through.

In that sense, Tanzania's head coach Hemed Suleiman ‘Morocco’ got the math right by player positioning, and 'Nado' did brilliant work with the ball when the side was in attack.

Still, it needed not just clever positioning – on the right of the opposite fullback- but also clever use of the left foot that the fullback could not reach.

There is a bit of irony in this narrative when it comes to using it as a model for the head coach's remarks, that this was a game-changing moment, but it did not come from Taifa Stars’ centre forward, Clement Mzize, as the argument on a killer striker would finally suggest.

The player closest to a striking position was Iddi 'Nado', but here, he played the role of assisting, and the killer instinct was left to the side’s right back, outwitting his opposite number on the other side.

This is not something that can be arranged by the coach, but which a player cleverly finds that it is possible and beckons the ball, or just passes at the right line and the ball… arrives.

What is even more ironic is that both these players, Maema and Kapombe, are on the Simba SC lineup, in which case a game-changing combination can arise in a similar situation, without regard for the specific players involved, as the two are not exceptional players in Taifa Stars and South Africa.

In that case, it is possible to simply describe as false what coach Fadlu maintained, that there are no players in his club who can change the game run in either at any moment or towards the last moments of a game, as both these players are there and they are not necessarily the best players on the side.

Similarly, Kapombe and 'Nado' were not necessarily the most gifted players on Taifa Stars’ line-up up but they rose to the occasion when their abilities were needed most – and so could other players in similar situations.

In other words, the remarks by the Msimbazi Street-based club's tactician could be said to be regrettable from a technical point of view in the sense of using the CHAN 2024 fateful goal scoring moment as a model.

From this scenario, it is evident that what Taifa Stars, or Simba SC for that matter, needs is good players, good positioning, motivation, and a stroke of luck, simply because how a ball is floated and meets another player cannot be predesigned.

This affirmation similarly rules out of place the spirited wish that the Azam FC midfielder, 'Nado', joins the city center rival side, Simba SC, for the simple reason that he does not have a monopoly on game-changing potential to make his shifting pivotal.