The Premier League’s first Tanzanian had no salary at his first club but Aston Villa’s striker now has his sights set on
Manchester City at Wembley
Mbwana Samatta is the son of a policeman but pays little attention to the law of probability. Good thing, too, otherwise the player who grew up kicking rolled-up plastic bags around the streets of Dar es Salaam would not be preparing to lead the line for Aston Villa at Wembley. More than 10 family members will be watching from the stands in Sunday’s Carabao Cup final and millions of his fellow Tanzanians will be cheering him on from farther afield. From Birmingham to east Africa, fans have invested a lot of hope in this 27-year-old. And that is how he likes it.
Samatta says he always wanted to be someone on whom folks could rely. At first he thought he should become a solider – “Just to be someone for the people, they could look and say: ‘Because of him, we are safe’” – but instead he achieved something far more improbable by becoming, following January’s £8.5m arrival from Genk, the first Tanzanian to play in the
Premier League and the centre-forward whom Villa want to
fire them to their first major trophy since 1996. Sure, Villa are underdogs but that does not matter to Samatta. Talent and strength of will have taken him a long way.