IT'S TIME TO GET OUR FOOTBALL BACK!!

Story written by Patrick Kamanga

IT’S TIME TO GET OUR FOOTBALL BACK

 


 

Kenya’s national football team, the Harambee Stars lost their Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) preliminary rounds qualifier after a goalless draw to less fancied Lesotho last Sunday which saw their opponents advance with a 1-0 aggregate score. In a lackluster performance, the Stars seemed short of ideas and despite the superior quality in their ranks and the advantage of partisan home support; they never really looked anywhere near eliminating their opponents. Lesotho seemed the more composed of the two teams and were the deserving winners.

The latest lose marked Kenyan football at its lowest ebb and represents 27 years of a slow and deep rooted decay!

Reinhadt Fabisch another German connection that made his mark on the Kenyan game

The Kenyan game’s finest moment came about in 1987 when three things happened.

First the Harambee Stars, then under the stewardship of the late German tactician Reinhadt Fabisch beat Zimbabwe 1-0 at the Nyayo National Stadium for a 2-1 aggregate score in June1987. The win thus guaranteed the Stars passage to the Africa Cup of Nations with Morocco’s coastal cities of Rabat and Casablanca playing hosts in March 1988 thereby ending the nation’s sixteen year hiatus having last participated at the continental finals in 1972. Fabisch then took his charges on a one month tour of West Germany where they played a total of 10 friendly matches and prepared for a bigger assignment.

That qualification was just but a dress rehearsal as more was to come the following month of August.
Kenya welcomed the continent of Africa playing host to the All Africa Games. In the football discipline, as hosts Kenya was grouped together with Tunisia, Cameroon and Madagascar in Group A. With Tunisia having represented the continent less than a decade earlier at the 1978 World Cup in Argentina and Cameroon following suit in Espana 1982, Kenya had its work cut out and was among the tournament's underdogs.

Group B comprised of African Champs Egypt along with Senegal’s Teranga Lions, Cote D’Ivore’s Elephants and tiny Malawi’s Flames coming in as the group’s whipping boys.
Its important to note that at the time, continental authorities CAF had yet to institute the age rule and all the teams brought their strongest squads which meant this was essentially was a “mini AFCON”.

The newly opened Moi International Sports Complex’s inaugural game was the tournament’s opener between Kenya and Tunisia. To set the tone for the football contest, the Harambee Stars shocked everyone by beating their much fancied opponents winning by a solitary goal after left winger Sammy Onyango Jogoo’s cross found striker Ambrose “Golden Boy” Ayoyi whose diving header late in the game put matters to rest. It’s at their second game that the Stars proved their mettle against African football giants, literally and figuratively, Cameroon’s Indomitable Lions! Lining up names such as Captain and defender Emmanuel Kunde, Benjamin Massing, Bertin "Ole Ole" Ebwele, Andre Kana Biyick, Cyrille Makanaky, Jean Claude Pagal, Francois Omam Biyick and the diminutive midfielder Emillie Mboue Mboue which later formed the core of their Italy ’90 squad.  The few notable omissions were Theophile Abega, Joseph Antoin’e Bell, Thomas Nkono and Roger Milla. With the nation as well as the continent expecting carnage, Kenya shocked the tall, muscular and technically gifted West Africans throwing the gauntlet and taking a stunning lead early in the match via Ambrose Ayoyi. The goal stung the Lions who responded immediately with two quick goals. Using left back Hassan Juma’s wing as their conduit, with moves straight from the training ground, Cameroon crafted two identical overlapping plays by midfielder Mboue Mboue whose pin point angled diagonal 45 degree cut-back crosses found a lone Cameroonian forward on both occasions lurking in wait outside Kenya’s box. With the Kenyan defense helplessly stranded, the resultant missiles from range whistled past a rooted David “Kamoga” Ochieng in goal to silence the packed Nyayo Stadium. Kenya gave a gallant fight in the second half taking the game to Africa’s ’82 World cup heroes with Davis Oyiela and Ambrose “Golden Boy” Ayoyi scoring two more goals past teenage goalkeeper Jacques Songoo. Down 3-2 with minutes to go, Cameroon’s French Coach Claude Le Roy in obvious disbelief threw everything into the game making several tactical changes as well as substitutions. Cameroon laid siege and camped in the Kenyan half, subsequently canceling out Kenya’s lead to force a 3-3 draw.  Kenya thus headed to the semis as group runners up after coming from behind to beat Madagascar 2-1 in their final group game!

What a tournament!

In group B, Malawi did one better. Taking cue from Kenya’s giant killing feats, they navigated by surprisingly holding the much stronger Cote D’Ivore, pipped Senegal then provided the tournament shocker by beating Egypt’s Pharaoh’s 2-1 to top their group on a better goal aggregate and set up an East Africa derby against Kenya. The shock loss so infuriated the Egyptians who thought they had been eliminated that they wrecked the stadium’s changing room facilities incurring CAF’s wrath.

With regular power black outs the norm those days, the embarrassing scourge of a power outage was to visit the Nyayo Stadium during the semi finals match between Kenya and Malawi. Whether the outage was deliberate or an accident no one really knows but with Malawi having rested an extra day than Kenya who had played their last game against Madagascar two days prior, the Flame’s fresher legs showed and they ran rings around Harambee Stars for ten minutes before the stadiums floodlights went off!
The match was subsequently abandoned and replayed the following day. With an extra day of rest, in a rain drenched evening Kenya came in fighting and George Nyangi Odembo otherwise known as “Artillery” living up to his billing who fired home one of his signature thunderous grass-cutter volleys to tie and send the game to extra-time. In the ensuing penalty shootout Kenya won 3-2 with David Ochieng providing the heroics saving 3 penalties.

Egypt similarly overcame Cameroon on post match penalties to set up a final showdown against Kenya at Kasarani.
The final match was played on the 12^th of August with the 60,000 capacity arena quickly filling up by lunchtime. To the apprehension of the stadium’s Chinese builders former President Moi, an ardent football fan arrived just before the kickoff and ordered the gates opened with the rushing droves of fans stretching the crowd to a near bursting 120,000, doubling its capacity and pushing the structure to its civil engineering limits!

In a tense and tight affair with Kenya pushing for a winner in extra-time and the game headed for a penalty shootout, Egypt’s bearded midfielder Mohammed Ramadhan who plied his trade at Portugal’s Beira Mar latched on to a long lob from goalkeeper Ahmed Shoubeir, beating Kenya’s offside trap subsequently scored past an advancing David Ochieng to win the match much to chagrin of the expectant nation, breaking Kenyans hearts.

The third fact was to follow where Harambee Stars fell short, Gor Mahia warmed Kenyan’s hearts by winning the African Club Championship four months later on December 10^th 1987. They had navigated a tough course that included Togo’s Entente, El Merreikh from Sudan, Benin’s Dragons Le’ Ouieme finally overcoming Tunisia’s Esperance in a two legged final. At the final’s first leg, with K’Ogalo taking an early 1-0 lead, talismanic midfielder the late Abbass Khamis Magongo, chested a long cross then controlled the ball with one knee, similar to but better than Colombia’s James Rodriguez’s goal against Uruguay at the recent World cup. He then unleashed a powerful volley that swerved beautifully past Esperance’s ageing goalkeeper’s flailing fingers, kissing the bar and crushing into the net to hush a 70,000 capacity El Menzah Stadium in Tunis for a 2-0 halftime lead. With a mountain to climb, Esperance fought back doggedly in the second half with their star midfielder Nabil Maloul (who left for Bundasliga's Hamburg SV after the finals) scoring both goals to save his team’s blushes. With the two away goals putting them in pole position, Gor Mahia ensured that the trophy remained on Kenyan soil when they battled the brave Tunisians to a 1-1 score at Kasarani, winning 5-3 via the away goals rule. 
K’Ogalo’s Peter Dawo was Africa’s top striker with a total haul of 10 goals. He interestingly scored all his goals from headers and thus made it to the African Player of the Year award list alongside the All Africa games hero, Ambrose Ayoyi.

With Kenya preparing for the AFCON in Morocco the following year, the bulk of Coach Fabisch’s squad consisted of ten squad members from Gor with their perennial arch-rivals AFC Leopards providing 5 players. The German tactician based his selection on a simple logic; Gor Mahia was the best team in Africa at the time. This logic however didn’t seat well with some of the bureaucrats who pushed for “regional balance”. Fabisch refused to budge and was subsequently shown the door thereby jumpstarting Kenya’s 27 year plummet from grace. During the fall-out, a high ranking KFF official was quoted telling Kenyans that Fabisch departure was no loss because like the changing seasons, “Coaches come and go!”

As part of their preparation the Brazilian CBF responded to Kenya’s pleas and offered technical assistance subsequently inviting the Stars for a month long training stint in the South American country in January 1988. They seconded a bespectacled Danilos Alves as Coach who then led the team on to Morocco two months later.
It was never the same, with the squad demoralized, a new coach with new tactics and ideas with communication problems obviously creating linguistic challenges as the technical bench only spoke Portuguese, Harambee Stars' fate was sealed!
Kenya suffering identical 3-0 losses to both Egypt and Nigeria finally bowing out with a 0-0 draw against eventual Champions Cameroon.

Subsequent offices have reigned over Kenyan football since with the same deplorable results.

What led to Kenya’s rise in the 1980’s that led to the above mentioned achievements?
For one the sound managerial decisions made in the early 1970’s by the then KFF Chairman Kenneth Matiba who brought his business and bureaucratic acumen and clarity of purpose to his tenure, turned to the German government for technical assistance who responded by sending over Eckhard Krautzen in 1972.

Krautzen served as Kenya's coach on a brief stint whose work was continued his fellow countryman, Bernard Zgoll.
Zgoll set up the Olympic Youth Centers in all the major towns in the country in 1977 which tapped talent and acted as reservoirs that churned out gifted players who graced the Kenyan game for the next decade and a half. The vibrant Kenya Secondary School Games annual competition also acted as an informal setup that augmented the youth centers with most of the local football clubs tapping the talent on to their ranks.

Clement Gachanja was to continue with Matiba’s policies in the early 1980’s a period that also saw the rise of Kenya’s national team as a regional power along the two club sides AFC Leopards and Gor Mahia.

Interestingly a one shilling “Youth Levy” charge was instituted in the mid 1980’s on all match tickets during all local and international matches by the football authorities at the time which had been intended for “youth development”.
No youth structures were ever put in place during that period and none has ever been witnessed, with no record of where the millions went and Kenya even regularly missing out or forfeiting its place in most continental youth competitions. Without youth football structures, expecting the standards of the game to improve is like attempting to draw water from a rock!

 


Eckhard Krautzen, one of Kenyan football's German connection in 1970's, an association that left a lasting legacy

With the latest lose to Lesotho; Kenya’s football is now on its death bed earnestly begging for radical surgery!

What the Kenyan game needs most is for the government of the day to intervene with force, kick out the present corrupt bureaucracy with one swift move! This will obviously incur a two year ban from FIFA.

With the ban in place, proper structures should then be instituted and put in place with proper personalities who have the Kenyan game’s true and genuine interests at heart selected to run the game in the interim. With a new constitution in place that will safe guard the game, elections should then be done to vote in the right people.
With proper structures and with the abundance in talent and potential that the country has, attracting corporate and other elements that can engender growth would be effortless.

Kenyans, let’s to get our game back!!