Soccer or football is one of the world’s most popular sports. With regards to Tanzania, it is a leading sport in terms of popularity of its players, coaches, fans and sponsors. The popularity of players is not only attributed by their skills in the game but also their Aliases (Alias is a name different than a person’s birth name. It is a fictitious name assumed by a person). Players are commonly identified by their aliases, in and outside the playing ground. Some of these aliases are ‘Ninja’, ‘Computer’, ‘Tekero’[1], Ronaldo etc. These aliases continue to exist even if one retires from the game. The aim of this paper, therefore, is to examine the formation of identities among Tanzanian soccer players through their aliases. By focusing on the players from the Simba and Yanga soccer teams, the paper intends to analyze the role of the aliases in generating players’ new identities, as well as their integration with Western-African identities. Our findings reveal that these aliases are self-given or are given by their fans. Players are very proud of being identified by their aliases because these aliases show one’s expertise in the game, awareness of the Western players and association to the referents. In general, these aliases are useful not only to the players but also to the understanding of the societal wider engagements with specific youth cultures, ‘global’ cultural participation, and fusions between the ‘local’ and the ‘foreign’.
[1] Former traditional healer in Tanzania.