Will Stanley Okumbi lift up Harambee Stars today?

Stanley Okumbi , centre, the Harambee Stars coach with Frank Ouna and Musa Otieno who are members of his technical bench during the 2017 AFCON qualifier against Guinea Bissau at Nyayo Stadium on March 27, 2016. Harambee Stars lost 1-0 [PHOTO: DENNIS OKEYO/STANDARD]

The Moi International Sports Centre in Kasarani. That is the place where football-loving Kenyans will today troop to for the match between Kenya national football team, Harambee Stars against the Red Devils of Congo.

The Africa Cup of Nations match kicks off at 4pm.

While the visitors will be looking for a win to boost their chances of making it to the next round, with nine points from five matches, Kenyans will only seek to save face. And all eyes will be on one man, Stanley Okumbi, Kenya’s coach.

Whether the Stars win by 100 goals to nil, nothing will change, and they will still be at the bottom of Group E -- the letter that is also written next to Kenya’s name in the standings table. It means Eliminated.

That letter is haunting Okumbi. And even a win today will not make matters any better for him.

“The fans are on my neck and that is why we need to win today,” he says, sounding unsure if the words are coming from him.

“We have been working on our finishing and hopefully the strikers will do their job and score goals.”

If you are faint of heart, you can sympathise with Okumbi. But since he wants to prove he needs no sympathies, you just listen to him as he talks about his vision.

“I can’t say much about the future now. Our focus is the Congo game and then we will sit down with FKF officials to chart the way forward,” he says.

He is really trying to sound confident, but his words sound hollow.

You can tell he hates the hollow sound. He is determined to prove to Kenyans, to players, and above all to himself that there was no mistake in appointing him.

He wants to prove that he is just as good as the next elite coach.

Poor chap.

The appointment of Okumbi as the coach of Harambee Stars in February this year, caught many by surprise because the 34-year old was not in the list of favourites to land the high pressure job.

The voices against his appointment were loud, coming as it were at a time when Football Kenya Federation had just got new officials, and Kenyans were expecting radical changes that could bring new life in to the national squad, whose fortunes had been dwindling by the day.

They said he lacked experience to manage a national team considering that he had only coached one Kenyan Premier League club, Mathare United, and he did not score highly while there.

Wrong Footing

It was even whispered, nay, shouted that he was being rewarded by his friend, the new FKF president, Nick Mwendwa. After all, Okumbi had coached lower league side, Kariobangi Sharks that is associated with Mwendwa.

A soft-spoken Okumbi, who prefers to address the press in a mixture of English and Kiswahili, did not speak much; he never responded to his critics, probably because he wanted his results to speak for themselves.

He wanted to prove them wrong, and let them know that his appointment was not based on friendship, but on competence.

Okumbi’s goose seemed cooked. He had his work cut out. He not only needed to win matches because that is what he was hired to do, and that is what good coaches do, but he had to do so to prove a point.

 But that was not to be as Okumbi started on the wrong footing on March 23rd, in Guinea Bissau.

On his first assignment, the team misfired and the Stars were dimmed 1 nil and technically knocked out of the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations.

The noises against his appointment only grew louder, and he did not hiss a response.

He had another chance four days later, he must have thought. Actually he had another chance. It was a return leg. The first match was in a foreign land, the return leg was at home where the fans could witness his tactics, and realise that they were wrong all along.

Mark the date. March 27. Nyayo National Stadium. This is a place he knows only too well.

He once coached Kenya Premier League side Mathare United, and he had faced opponents at this ground. He had even come to the stadium as a fan.

He struggled to achieve results with Mathare United and at one point threw in the towel before being prevailed upon to return.

But that was water under the bridge. He had grown older, bolder and wiser.

He knew the pitch, the stands, the dressing room, the tunnel.

On March match 27, there was light at the end of that tunnel.

In the 80th minute, that light went out. Okumbi’s world became dark. And then there was crowd trouble.

The lowly ranked Guinea Bissau scored on the way to completing double over the Stars and moving to the top of the table with seven points.

Frustrated fans started throwing stones and other missiles onto the pitch and the referee temporarily stopped the game for over half an hour as police officers added to the fans’ tears by lobbing teargas canisters at them.

Okumbi cried foul. His raspy voice was heard, loud and clear.

“I cannot blame the fans for the acts of hooliganism, but the elite coaches in the country. These were hired goons sent to disrupt the game,” Okumbi said.

“Unfortunately, I have found out that it is the so called elite coaches who are behind this. Through my sources, I know that there are top coaches who are eyeing this job and have been against us young coaches.

“There have been no good will from them since I took over the job and they have been fighting me all along. Interestingly, apart from two coaches, none of them have ever guided the national team to the AFCON finals. It is just that they want the job.”

RUBBISHED HIS CLAIMS

Shouts of cry baby could be heard across the country as the elite coaches denied, nay, rubbished his claims.

After the two losses to Guinea Bissau, Stars, under Okumbi drew 1-1 against Sudan and Tanzania in international friendlies last weekend. The results made local fans even more upset because these were minnows.

In the region, Kenyans believe they control the moon, the sun...the Stars, are out of control.

Four matches down the line, Okumbi is winless and will therefore be seeking to redeem himself against Congo as he searches for his first win.

He insists he is not under pressure and believes that his strikers are not doing their job to give him goals and therefore victory.

“Our biggest problem as a team is that we are not able to convert the chances that come our way,” he says.

“In a match, we sometimes create five or more chances but we are not able to score.

“That has always been a problem for this team and nothing else.”

For a team that has scored just two goals in four matches played this year and coming from non-strikers, Okumbi’s statement could have some truth.

“We have a scoring problem in Kenya. We are creating many chances but not scoring them. Against Sudan, we had at least five clear chances but could not convert any,” he says.

“Jesse Were had an open chance which he should have converted. There was no one distracting him and I want to say that if he gets another chance, he must do better.”

Since Dennis Oliech took Harambee Stars to the 2004 Africa Cup of Nations finals, no outright striker has emerged to take his place by scoring regularly and sending the team to major tournaments or helping them win some. But then again, Okumbi’s selection has also come under scrutiny and had a lot of flak thrown his way when he picked Ovella Ochieng and Patilla Omotto for the fixtures against Guinea Bissau.

While Ovella Ochieng managed to prove critics wrong, the fielding of Omotto backfired. It did not help matters for Okumbi that the two players are from Kariobangi Sharks.

Okumbi admits that he is feeling the pressure from fans who are in desperate need of a win.

Okumbi holds a CAF ‘A’ licence apart from a KNVB Coaching Certificate. Despite his confident demeanour, results of the match against Congo could as well determine his future. It is something he has somehow come to terms with.