OKUMBI HAPPY: Coach says select team did well despite loss to Hull City

Harambee Stars' Coach Stanley Okumbi during training for return leg in Guinea-Bissau at Utalii College on Saturday, March 19, 2016. PHOTO: JONAH ONYANGO/STANDARD.

Did it all come crashing down at KCOM Stadium in Hull City on Monday evening?

Depends on where you are watching from. If you are in Kenya, most probably that is what happened to the SportPesa AllStars initiative now that the squad could not beat a Select 11 from Hull City FC which comprised mostly academy players.

But if you are a member of that squad, then the 2-1 loss does not signify the end of the road, but it offered a lesson in team selection, tactics and training regimes.

Many Kenyans could have expected better, and rightfully so, because the friendly was publicised using the most appropriate adjectives and was seen as a section of the route to Kenya’s chances to World Cup in 2022.

The squad exuded confidence, the technical bench was in high spirits and wanted to show Kenyans, and prove to themselves, that even though the facilities they work with are not up to par, if they are exposed to better ones even for a few days, they can post good results.

Those who are not big fans of Stanley Okumbi, the national team coach who was also in charge of the Sportpesa AllStars, did not expect much, and were not surprised by the results — if they were, it is only because the Kenyan outfit conceded only two, too little for a side managed by a colourless man who has known nothing but negativity.

“The performance was good,” Okumbi says, but is quick to add that it was not the best and he could have done better if some things were done the “right way”.

It cannot be said that Okumbi is so happy with the way the original team was selected, and even how he ended up with these 18 players.

“I was not fully involved and if such an initiative is to produce better results, I, or the coach who will train the final squad, should get a greater role,” he said.

No need to cry over lost matches, but it would not be wrong to listen to the coach, after all, he was the man charged with getting the best out of the squad, which, it was felt, was made of older players, and not people who can take Kenyan football to greater heights because, ideally, they are way past their sell-by dates.

“I had a team and I had to work with them, but as a trainer I should have been involved in the selection,” Okumbi says, and explains that he was not involved in picking the final 18 from the original 47 players who were selected from Kenyan Premier League clubs.

But is it not the older players who gave a good account of themselves during the match, and why did you not field the young ones?

“Actually, I could have played better than some of the players that I benched,” the coach said, matter-of-factly, adding that his decision was informed by how match-fit he deemed the players to be.

He says most of those players also need to get playing time in their respective clubs to be match-fit, and says that even time was not on his side.

“If I had spent close to six months with that squad, the results could have been different,” he says.

Hull City Select netted the first goal after 11 minutes, courtesy of Elliot Holmes as the Kenyans wobbled their way through a rain-soaked first half.

The hosts’ lead was doubled through an own goal by defender Harun Shakava and even though the team showed some industry, they could not recover fully until the dying minutes when Humphrey Mieno netted the consolation goal.