Where are our football team's statisticians and video analysts?

L-R: Southamton's Victor Wanyama tussles for the ball with Liverpool's Divock Origi Photo: AFP

It was a scramble. Everyone wanted a piece of the pie.

Actually, they all wanted the pie claiming that they baked it — but could not provide answers to the simple questions some of us were asking: What were the ingredients, the measurements, the preparation and baking times. Where are your statistics?

When Victor Wanyama, the Harambee Stars captain, moved from Celtic FC in the Scottish Premiership to Southampton in the English Premier League in 2013, several Kenyan clubs were claiming to have played a part in his development.

They wanted a cut of his transfer fee, as stipulated by FIFA, the world’s football governing body.

It was a transfer windfall — at least that is how we, Kenyan journalists, kept calling it.

And several clubs that had hitherto been silent about Wanyama’s progress came out of the woodwork to claim that he could not have succeeded in Europe if it were not for them.

Transfer windfall

Apparently, he had played for all these local clubs, and a large chunk of his transfer windfall was not just their constitutional right, but their birthright.

“Did it just occur to them that Wanyama used to be in their clubs,” I asked in a piece I wrote in the Daily Nation in August 2013.

“If he actually was in their clubs, isn’t it in their records and thus indisputable. Is there any need for them to run to the media to argue their cases?’

Of course the questions I raised in my piece (Stop drooling all over Wanyama), which had choice names for Kenya’s sports administrators, were never answered publicly, because, it was said, I killed Kenyan cricket and I wanted to kill Kenyan football too. Laughable.

The point I was raising four years ago, and which I am raising today too is, do local clubs and the national team keep records?

Most importantly, do they even have statisticians and (video) analysts who keep track of players’ performances and progress?

Since I supposedly understand only local cricket — which I have been accused of killing — when it comes to matters football, I only employ my thoughts but try not to use my words, so I consult people who are in contact with local sports administrators, people with a world view of sports in general, and football in particular — and they validate my thoughts.

“Statisticians are extremely important! Harambee Stars and local clubs do not even have a laptop (computer) to keep data, let alone statisticians!” a senior sports journalist, a veteran of both cricket and football world cups, and several international sporting events, remarked.

He continued: “When I was chatting with Divock Origi’s father, Mike Okoth, he told me that when English club Liverpool were negotiating with him and French club Lille over signing Divock, the English club’s statisticians unleashed a video recording of Divock since the time he was nine years old.

Scouting department

“The video analysed his strengths and weaknesses and followed his development for over a decade. That is the job of statisticians in the scouting department who recommend which player to sign and why.”

He says there are first team statisticians who analyse both the team’s players and opponents. They help the coach draw formations, and to increase the chances of a penalty taker scoring, they even advise on details such as the opposing team’s goalkeeper’s weak side during penalties.

“Statisticians and (video) analysts perform 40 per cent of the coach’s work,” he said.

There has been talk, a lot of talk, from the top leadership of Football Kenya Federation that they are working towards Harambee Stars qualifying for the Fifa World in Qatar in 2022, but little is being said about the small structures that play big roles in modern football and which contribute to teams’ successes.

Ideally, Kenya’s football administrators seem to think that football is just a sport, and not a science; that it is all brawn, and little brain; that it is all big talk, and no action about the small matters such as statisticians and video analysts.

They talk about the youth being part of this journey to Qatar, but there are no modern structures for tracking their progress and identifying their weakness so that in the event a new technical bench comes in, it has some data to work with and does not have to start from scratch.

Unless these structures which are considered small issues but which play big roles in modern sports are put in place, the journey to Qatar will just be a conversation; it will be all talk, and as an expert said, a lullaby for Kenya’s sleeping game.

The writer is an editor with the Weekend editions of Standard.