FOLLOWING a brief lull in the action-packed CAF Confederations Cup this season, it seems like the football competition is poised to resume as the draw for the quarterfinals was held lately.

From a Tanzanian standpoint, our hopes will be pinned on Simba SC as they will be our flag-bearers in the last eight of the tournament.

 Indeed, as the draw reveals, Simba will battle it out against the Egyptian football outfit Al Masry in what is likely to be a truly compelling affair.

And, with the first leg of this high stakes showdown due to take place in Egypt, it is hoped that the Msimbazi Street-based side can earn a favourable result in the first leg and then hopefully, thump Al Masry in the return leg here at home.

Unsurprisingly, it should be recalled that matches against Egyptian opponents of any way, shape or form in the past have for the most part, definitely not been a walk in the park for the leading lights of Tanzanian football.

In fact, the lion’s share of our past tussles with Egyptian sides have largely ended up as disappointing and painful defeats.

With that in mind, then, Simba should head into their quarterfinal against Al Masry with a mixture of cautious optimism and steely determination so that they can deservedly emerge as the undisputed victors.

Having put that issue to bed, let us now focus on the Atalanta attacker Ademola Lookman of Nigeria, who has recently been going through a saddening and rough patch.

Indeed, the deadly Nigerian forward who is on the books of the Serie A football side Atalanta was slammed by his Italian club’s head coach Gianpiero Gasperini as being one of the worst penalty takers that he had ever seen.

Gasperini’s severe criticism stemmed from Atalanta’s second leg of their UEFA Champions League playoff tie against Club Brugge which saw the Italian outfit being ousted from European football’s top tier competition.

After losing the first leg 2-1 to the Belgian juggernauts Club Brugge, Atalanta went behind 3-0 in the return leg which completely shocked legions of Italian football devotees.

Lookman then handed Atalanta a glimmer of hope when he netted the ball to render the score-line 3-1.

However, the problem was that Lookman also went on to miss a penalty which prompted Gasperini to make his wholly unfair remark.

Lest we forget, it was Lookman who stole the show in the UEFA Europa League Final last season when his Italian club Atalanta took on their German opponents Bayer Leverkusen.

With multiple fans expecting Leverkusen to carry the day, Lookman impressively rose to the occasion as he almost single-handedly won the consequential match for Atalanta by fabulously scoring an impeccable hat-trick in his Italian side’s 3-0 triumph.

Thus, it appears that some people have extremely short memories.

In addition, it should be noted that huge numbers of all-time football greats have missed crucial penalties during their glittering careers.

From the ‘white Pele’ Zico’s penalty miss at the 1986 FIFA World Cup to Roberto Baggio’s heartbreaking penalty miss at the 1994 FIFA World Cup final against Brazil among others, it can clearly be seen that even the most exceptional football stars are capable of erring when taking penalty kicks.

To sum up, Gasperini’s comments were in extremely bad taste and they were totally uncalled for, especially for a player who has given his all to Atalanta.