Two easy goals from Baghdad Bounedjah and Manchester City forward Riyad Mahrez were enough to sink Harambee Stars hopes of qualifying past the group stages.
Harambee Stars now face Senegal who already have three points, and is a must win for them to see through to the next stage.
Again, they also have Tanzania, another must win game for Kenya.
But from yester-night’s shambolic display, those results will be remain a pipe dream.
The only option they have is to board their awaiting jet in Cairo and return back with their hopes in African football shuttered.
All said, we have crucial lessons we can learn from the poor results from Harambee Stars display.
- We need a talisman, someone who can change the game, and fight for the team when we need him. Mike Olunga is not there, and Victor Wanyama is reduced to more of a defender than a goal scorer.
- Corruption is killing our football, boys are underpaid and selection of the squad is sometimes based on who knows who, rather than who plays better.
- We need a better coach. Sebastian Migne is not even a leader. He is making poor match decisions, controversial AFCON squad as well as picking players who can’t even complete passes, poor ball control.
- Stop over-relying on Wanyama, he is a normal human being, he is not Messi or Ronaldo, infact Wanyama is so poor with average players around him.
- The whole squad needs an overhaul, if you watched the game, those players are good at blessing the opponents with injuries, players like Francis Kahata and Ayub Masika are just overrated. They cannot even go past defenders, harass the opponent mid or even return back balls.
- The midfield is dead. Wanyama, Erick Johanna and Dennis Odhiambo were very poor on tackles, ball winning and even making front runs.
- We need to treat football as a career, rather than a hobby. This will enable good payment of footballers and nature more talent locally. Most KPL clubs averagely pay their players less than Ksh.20,000. This discourages potential upcoming soccer players
- Ministry of Sports led by CS Amina Mohammed is sleeping on the job. There has been no new serious policies in soccer for the last 10 years and yet we expect miracles
- If we can’t prioritize soccer in High Schools and Varsities, our talent will be lost in books. Football is a huge career adventure, that is lowly spoken in Kenyan schools
- Some heads need to role, after the AFCON crush, and if possible action taken against them
