IF a stress survey is to be conducted among coaches and teams competing in this year's Cecafa Senior Challenge Cup in Kenya, the findings would most probably indicate that Marcio Maximo is among those under greatest pressure at this particular time.
Maximo, now in his fourth year as Taifa Stars head coach, is desperate to appease disgruntled fans after a series of the team's embarrassing defeats in both competitive and international friendlies.
His time as Taifa Stars coach has been dogged by controversy and unconvincing performances that have failed to significantly revive the team's fortunes.
Tanzania Mainland's national soccer team, Kilimanjaro Stars, also coached by the Brazilian, seem hellbent in living up to the dictum that whatever Taifa Stars do, they can do better.
In their first Cecafa Senior Challenge Cup match, they tumbled 2-0 to defending champions Uganda Cranes in Mumias, Kenya last week.
The defeat has once again brought into the spotlight the vexed subject of foreign coaches and the actual extent of their input to the local game.
It can be argued that the Brazilian is one of the coaches with high profiles to have ever worked in the five years or so of semi-professional soccer in the country, with a CV unsurpassed by some of his predecessors.
He came highly rated, having nurtured World Cup winners Ronaldo and former Barcelona FC play-maker Ronaldinho during his time as coach of Brazil's Under-17 and Under-20 sides.
He was also a member of Brazil's youth coaching staff in 1992 and 1993. Later, he coached Livingston Football Club in Scotland in 2003/2004.
It was this coaching history that, perhaps, seduced the government to recruit him in a bid to turn around the country's soccer fortunes.
His appointment by the government in 2006, followed a promise made by President Jakaya Kikwete, months after being elected Head of State, to ensure improvement of football in the country.
The country's football authorities, like other Tanzanians, thought Maximo could bring a touch of Brazilian magic to the local game, and restore the national soccer team's dented pride at the international level.
His immediate task was to ensure success-starved Taifa Stars qualify for the 2008 African Nations Cup finals in Ghana.
However, Maximo, despite enjoying unprecedented moral and material support from the government and the business community, failed to realise that goal.
Looking unperturbed, the defiant Maximo said his next goal was to ensure Taifa Stars seal the 2010 African Nations Cup finals in Angola.
He also failed, and this time miserably as his team failed to even make their presence felt in the final round of the qualifiers.
And as of now, most soccer fans feel it is time Maximo modified his approach and adapted to the more carefree and convivial Tanzanian nature.
But for him, he has taken a cagey approach of total self-belief in his ideas and tactics, refusing to take advices from his assistants or those close to the team on the potential strengths and weaknesses of his players.
The Brazilian has been intent on finding out for himself and in the recent past, we have witnessed him overlook or drop some of the best players from his squad for reasons best known to himself.
Why is Maximo reluctant to give convincing reasons for his unilateral decision to blacklist such skillful and most dependable players as goalkeeper Juma Kaseja, defender Amir Maftah and midfielders Haruna Moshi and Athuman Idd 'Chuji'?
If is is a matter of discipline, then he should recall the following two incidents. Italy’s 1982 World Cup winning golden boy and tournament top scorer Paolo Rossi almost didn’t make the finals after serving out two years of a ban imposed on him for allegedly accepting a bribe.
When his suspension ended on April 29, 1982, Rossi was immediately given a recall to the Italian national squad for the World Cup in Spain by coach Enzo Bearzot.
After four games and no goals in the tournament Rossi and Bearzot found themselves under immense pressure but the coach persevered and was rewarded with a Paolo Rossi hat-trick which took Italy into the semi-finals, beating the great Brazil side of Zico, Socrates and Junior 3-2.
Rossi went on to score both goals in the 2-0 semi-final victory over Poland and the first in Italy’s eventual 3-1 victory over West Germany in the final making him the top scorer in the 1982 World Cup. Quite a turnaround for a man who was viewed as a pariah only a couple of months before.
Maximo should also remember that during qualification for the 1994 World Cup, Brazil's Romario had been dropped by Carlos Alberto Parreira (now South Africa coach) for his bad attitude.
But after the Seleção lost to Bolivia and needed a win over Urugua
y to ensure qualification, there was a clamour for his reinstatement. So Parreira recalled Romario, and the little man did not disappoint.
Apart from being self-centered, Maximo has also proved that he does not like to dip into a fountain of local knowledge. That is why we see some players being used out of position and out of their depth in most of their matches.
For a man of his experience and reputation and given the nicest kind of financial support he enjoys, there is nothing the local soccer fans must feel other than 'betrayal'.
Hailed in some quarters as having helped Tanzania go out of what he preferably refers to as an 'Intensive Care Unit', Maximo has so far not won a single regional or continental title in his 40-month reign as Taifa Stars and Kilimanjaro Stars coach.
Two weeks ago, Tanzania dropped five steps deep into FIFA monthly revised global rankings to stay 99th from its previous position of 94, under the same Maximo.
Gone are the days when Tanzania was among the best soccer playing nations in Africa, if the performance by Maximo's team is anything to go by.
In 1974, for instance, the Mainland team, despite facing financial problems, won the Cecafa Challenge Cup under local coach Shaaban Marijani (now dead).
They repeated that memorable feat in 1994 in Nairobi, Kenya, then coached by Syllersaid Mziray and his assistant Charles Boniface Mkwasa.
Taifa Stars, on the other hand, made all Tanzanians proud in 1979 when they qualified for the 1980 African Nations Cup finals in Lagos, Nigeria for the first ever time.
Then under the tutelage of Polish coach Slawomir Wolk and his assistants Ray Gama (now dead) and Joel Bendera (incumbent Deputy Minister for Information, Culture and Sports), Taifa Stars silenced Zambia 2-1 on aggregate to seal the Lagos finals.
But under Maximo, the two teams have remained mere participants in both the Nations Cup and Cecafa Challenge Cup.
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