By Gilbert Wandera

Four weeks ago former Kenyan Premier League champions Sofapaka were struggling to win matches on the local scene.

It was so bad that the team at one time went three matches without a win collecting just one point from a possible nine.

This forced club President Elly Kalekwa to issue an ultimatum to the players and technical bench to either shape up or ship out.

Well, this seems to have worked wonders at least going by the results of their last two matches.

Two weeks ago, Sofapaka blanked Thika United 4-1 away and if anyone thought that it was a fluke, they followed it up with a 3-0 win over Ulinzi Stars last Saturday in a Football Kenya Federation (FKF) President’s Cup match.

The team has now scored seven goals in two matches making their striking force one of the most dangerous on the local scene in a league that is struggling to get goals.

Coach Salim Ali while admitting that the result is a warning for other teams to watch out, remains cautious and insists that they still have a long way to go.

“What these results have done is to build confidence in the team and it is getting better match by match if you consider that different players are scoring goals. Other teams should certainly be worried about our new found form,” he said.

Lack of focus

Looking back, Ali said the poor results in the past were occasioned by luck of focus on the part of players and miscommunication between them and the management.

“We had a good talk and impressed on the players the need to focus on their core business-that is playing football then everything will fall into place.

“We made the players to understand that if the results continue to be poor, then we all have something to lose and I am glad it worked and they are back with a bang,” he explained.

Elsewhere, twenty players have been selected to the national under-17 side that will play Tanzania in an Africa Youth Championships match next month.

The 20 were named after undergoing the mandatory MRI test to verify their ages. They have been asked to assemble at the federation’s secretariat this Friday.

According to Hussein Terry who chairs the youth committee 10 more players will be added to the team to have a squad of 30 players.

“We will conduct trials this weekend and have all the 30 players report for residential training on August 20,” he said.

Hussein said the team will play a series of build-up matches with provincial and Division One teams prior to taking on Tanzania.