Kenya Football .:. Story - What Next For Harambee Stars?

What next for Harambee Stars? - kenyafootball.com image

By Steve Orina

With Harambee Stars given a reality check at the ongoing CECAFA 2007 Cecafa Cup, the one question that any Harambee Stars followers will want to ask is what next?

With a home based contingent assembled at the airport with no training and headed to Oman for a two game friendly invite, the team had just one other friendly, against its foreign counterparts the weekend just before heading to Tanzania in readiness for an event they were ill prepared for - simply put.

A late goal sank Harambee Stars in the opener against Tanzania, the defensive lapse not to be mentioned.

The team went on to loose by a solitary goal to the form team Burundi before a face saving two goal win over Somalia that sent Kenya to the quarters.

But already blemished by two back to back looses, murmurs of Tanzania being too hot, allowances not being paid to the players and ill preparations cropped up.

Scapegoat?

But really who cares? Bottom line is Kenya never took the event seriously. Four games, three losses, four goals scored, four goals conceded – beaten at the quarters by Uganda. Fact.

While heading to Tanzania, Kenya was the second highest ranked nation in the CECAFA region just behind Uganda. In the FIFA rankings, Kenya was 97th while Uganda was at 94.

Midway through the CECAFA, the FIFA rankings was released and Kenya realized how far back it has plummeted. 13 positions down to 110 in the global rankings, down to the seventh amongst the CECAFA members and now Kenya finds itself rated behind Uganda, Tanzania, Sudan, Rwanda, Ethiopia and the ever improving Burundi.

Kenya is now only better than Djibouti, Somalia and Eritrea. The 11th CECAFA Member Zanzibar is not recognized by FIFA

As the team is expected back home, it will be interesting to hear what the Coach Jacob ‘Ghost’ Mulee has to say to the performance. Artificial turf? Blunt strikers? Uncoordinated defense?

Who assembled the team?

Beyond CECAFA 2007

Looking past CECAFA what really is next for Harambee Stars? Cameroon will pitch camp in Kenya in January probably from the seventh in preparation of the Nation’s Cup.

Any likelihood that Harambee Stars shall get to play the indomitable lions is yet to be known. Will Kenya knock an opportunity for a high class friendly as the opportunity comes knocking in January?

With a hectic one month in June in the race to Angola and South Africa 2010, Harambee Stars requires the best of preparations.

Recall the trip to Europe that led Kenya to the Africa Cup of Nations?

Anything short of that kind of preparation will be a disaster for a Nation craving for a good performance but putting little resources to achieve it.