Hiring foreign coach for Harambee Stars is not good enough

Football Kenya Federation (FKF) president Nick Mwendwa unveils the new head coach for Harambee Stars Paul Putt from Belgium during the FKF annual general meeting at the English Point Marina Apartments in Mombasa, November 18, 2017. [PHOTO BY GIDEON MAUNDU/STANDARD].

[inset] The writer is an editor with The Standard, Weekend Editions.

As I mentioned last week, there was hope three years ago that come 2018, Harambee Stars will be playing in the Fifa World Cup in Russia.

As it had always happened when (pre) qualifying rounds for continental or global competitions were going on, Kenyans were hoping against hope.

All the 2018 World Cup slots have been filled and the most Kenyan football fans can do is moan over the failure of Italy, United States, Chile, Cameroon, Netherlands, Ghana and South Africa to qualify despite their previous stellar performances.

Italy, the four-time winners and Netherlands, the perennial runner-up, discovered that the road to a cold Russia was not just bumpy but slippery too.

The United States Men’s National Soccer Team (USMNT) realised too late in the day that they will not strut their stuff on enemy territory — now that Russia is their biggest foe. It will not be surprising if they say the plot to sabotage their efforts was hatched in the Kremlin and that their systems were hacked by the Russians.

For a people who seek to play in a football World Cup but play soccer in the qualifying rounds, the USMNT have made great strides — and if you are young enough to have watched them in Italia 90, you will agree that they have improved tremendously.

In Italy in 1990, where they made an appearance after a 36-year absence in the global pitch, the USMNT had very few supporters. Going forward though, their fan base continued to grow — even though their women (USWNT) were doing better — and US citizens were the biggest group of travelling fans to any World Cup.

The failure of the US and those other European football big wigs to qualify  is a testament that even with the best facilities, the best local coaches and a history of successes, losses can still be registered when things are taken for granted.

That is why it becomes tricky for Harambee Stars, who have no history of successes, good facilities and even inspiring local coaches.

There is so much that needs to be done for Harambee Stars to even think of making it to next three global competitions, and the continued talk of making it to Qatar in 2022 will only bring more heartbreak.

It can be argued that Football Kenya Federation’s move to replace the local coach with a Belgian is the first step of the journey to Qatar and beyond, but Stanley Okumbi was not the weakest link in Kenya’s football system, just a part of a weak line-up that rewards mediocrity, foams at the fingers, twiddles its collective thumb and incessantly mixes up its metaphors.

Though colourless, he did his bit in the weak system, and to paraphrase British author Hector Hugh Munro, Okumbi was a good local coach, as local coaches go; and as local coaches go, it is good he has gone out of Harambee Stars dressing room.

 

The writer is an editor with The Standard, Weekend Editions.

 

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