LOCAL FOOTBALL GOT A LONG WAY TO GO

After a labored goalless draw against Ethiopia on Saturday, at the Nyayo National Stadium, Harambee Stars were knocked out of the African Nations Championships (CHAN) qualifiers on a 2-0 aggregate. The verdict is out; our local leagues have not grown as we have been made to think! The local-based players from Ethiopia proved us wrong on Saturday. It was a disappointing game, drub approach by Kenya. A grimier fact is that until the late introduction of Noah Wafula and Danson Kago for Edwin Wafula and Ali Abondo respectively, our twin strikers, Jesse Were and Michael Olunga had not received any cross from either Ali Abondo or Kevin Kimani! Except for Ali Abondo’s in-swinging free-kick that was parried by the Ethiopian custodian, and the 60^th minute by Abondo penalty that cannoned off the post, Kenyan chances were few and far between. Awful free-kicks, pathetic corner kicks and miserable passes best describe the shambolic display that Harambee Stars put on against Ethiopia.

Ethiopia nearly scored in the first half only for Boniface Oluoch to deny Behailu Assefa after a frenetic counter attack by the visitors. Oluoch had to twice deny Ramkel Lok on two occasions. This relatively easy on paper game epitomized the technical and tactical naivety that describes our local football! The bitter truth is that local leagues are the founding stones for the national team. That is why our poor Harambee Stars is the miserable product of the below-par Kenyan local leagues! Since its inaugural edition in 2009, Harambee Stars has never qualified for the showpiece! The CHAN jinx continues!

No cross came in from the flanks, yet we weirdly believed we could score at least twice to force the game into penalty-shoot-out! Ethiopian stood out tall with their 4-4-2 that was designed to suffocate any Kenyan attack. Foolishly, we went out with a system that hardly functioned. Our wing-play virtually dead! Even when it was clear that Ethiopian were content to sit back, defend and catch us on the break, we continued hurling long balls to Olunga and Were, hoping to get a miraculous goal! In a frenetic break in the 30^th minute, the visitors nearly caught us on the break as they turned our free-kick into an all-out attack that miraculously missed our net! We fluffed a penalty that could have changed the game, courtesy of Ali Abondo’s casually struck kick! Kevin Kimani had missed another in the first leg. Simply put, it was a disappointing game from our boys and only sterile optimism kept pushing on the fans on the Nyayo terraces! Remember the previous weekend, Olunga hit four past Chemelil while Were hit a brace against Nairobi City Stars! But from the weekend’s drub showing by Harambee Stars, we all must have realized that the Chemelil and City Star’s defenses were pathetically weak and maybe that’s why they conceded six from the two men who hardly threatened against Ethiopia. However, it does not mean that Were and Olunga are not good players, only that they are far from the finished article that can win international matches that present tougher defenses.

The question begs, has our local football improved as so much believe? Our local players have always came second best to their counterparts in these qualifiers of the second-tier African Nations Cup! Is that not proof enough that the other leagues across the continent are ahead of us by a mile? Since Sofapaka famously reached the pre-Quarter finals of the 2011 CAF Confederations Cup, no Kenyan club has ever gone past the second round and worse still, humiliating defeats mark the exits of Kenyan clubs from these continental tourneys! Since 2008 when Tusker Fc lifted the CECAFA Club Championship in Tanzania, no other Kenyan club has ever being a serious contender, let alone winning the regional cup.

CAF assignments, especially CHAN, club championships and CECAFA Club Championships have been enough vindication of all the pessimistic minds on Kenyan soccer. Yes, Supersport came in, pumped in money and airs the matches live to the entire globe, but we have never exported any talent to lucrative African leagues and the ultimate European stage! Southampton’s Victor Mugubi, Parma’s MacDonald Mariga, Dennis Oliech and Lillestrom SK’s Arnold Origi all went long before SuperSport came in. Consecutive top-scorers, players of the season, midfielders of the season et all, have never made an impression in Africa or Europe. They simply get lost the following season in the local league. At best, we move in circles, without any steps forward! All players that are honoured at the end of any Kenya Premier League (KPL) season should step higher up the football ladder and onto elite African leagues or Europe, but it has never really happened. Look at Francis Ouma (Top Scorer, 2008), George ‘Blackberry’ Odhiambo (Player of Season, 2011) and John Baraza (Top Scorer, 2012) among others who shone in the local league. They top scored in the league, won player of season accolades and went to Europe only to come back after being part-time practice players in Europe!  Simply put, the best talent from the KPL has always failed in foreign land!

Somehow, fans have trooped back to the fields, Gor Mahia has regained its ‘Big Boy’ title in Kenyan football, the Ingw’e-K’Ogallo rivalry has always given us two great games each season and players are making lives our of soccer. But the truth is that our local football has not grown as we thought, at least tactically and technically, we are football babies in diapers! What Ethiopia did over the weekend was simply a painful reminder of the bitter truth that our elite football league is still terribly low in the technical and tactical approach!