Apparently Bobby Williamson is paid Ksh 2.5 million per month. A classic case of misplaced priorities

Good play from Timbe, Olunga and Omollo. 2 - 5 Winnners away to Mauritius. Conceding 2 goals 2nd half though needs fixing.

Considering that Cape Verde are ranked number 32 by FIFA and harambee stars are ranked 125. And considering how poor harambee stars preparations are, its a good win.

Goes to show that Harambee stars can play well if given a chance. If you give Harambee stars the proper level of prepararion needed, they can go to the Top 70 in the FIFA rankings.

if you institute even a semblance of a youth development scheme, they can go to the top 50. Wale wanasema eti Kenyans cannot play football are missing the point.

I am just saying that in general, when provided with the appropriate level of support , planning and incentives, harambee stars are quite capable. That is what is missing in Kenya football.

One unstated thing is the role Big Vic is playing keeping the squad united and somewhat motivated to play for the country despite massive administrative failures.

I disagree entirely with the bolded section.

The truth is that those who succeed are usually the ones who are provided with an enabling environment.

Neither Messi nor Ronaldo nor any of the top European stars would have succeeded to the extent they have if they had grown up in Kenya.

Messi is who he is because he enrolled at the Barcelona Youth academy when he was only 13. There he learned from the best youth coaches, who enforce proper technique, proper habits, teach positiioning, use of both feet etc and other issues that are best learned at youth level.

Now contrast this with the average Kenya player, growing up in Kibera, playing with ball ya jwala, never learning to head or trap the ball properly, never learning basic positioning etc.

You think a Kenyan player has a chance of being as good as a player who enrolled at a European youth academy?

I think not. Its like expecting a chokora to be as well behaved and studious as a person who grew up in a Middle class family and attended school throughout.

@kaka2za

Poverty is not the issue. In fact growing up in poverty is what motivates many of the top stars to work hard at their game.

You are mistaken if you think that Brazil does not have an enabling environment. In fact Brazil is one of the country's that does a good job of identifying young talent from the schools and putting them in proper youth development structures. As an example, Neymar was identified by Santos when he was only 11 years old. He started to play for Santos at age 11. This means throughout his pre-teen and teen years he was exposed to the best coaches in Brazilian football. By age 16 he joined the Brazil Under 17 team.

Note that in Kenya, not only are youth development structures missing, but also Kenya has no active youth teams for U17 and U20.

As for George Weah, he is the rare exception that proves the rule. He is so freakishly talented with so much exceptional ability that he was able to overcome all the disadvantages of growing up in Liberia.

Ask yourself why Liberia has not produced other George Weah types
How come Nigeria has not produced another Hakeem Olajuwon?
How come Namiabia has not produced another Frankie Fredericks?

If it was as easy as you seem to be suggesting then don'y you think there would be more George Weah types out there?

These are all exceptional once in a generation sportsmen with unique talents that enable them to overcome disadvantages.

Most other sportsmen do not have such abilities

Ask yourself why Africa is lagging behind today? No African country has a world cup record worth bragging about in the last 2 or 3 world cups. And the only world class African strikers are those who spent all their teen years in Europe like Etoo and Drogba.


For a country to succeed at sport, there has to be an enabling environment

They may be lucky to have one freakishly talented individual player who is a genetic outlier. But the rest of the line-up will be below par. Just like Liberia with Weah, or Togo with Adebayor.

@ Taz...you are having a laugh right? AFC and Gor are on shoe string budgets and can barely manage the first team squad leave alone youth sides.
We need to get the basics right. First, where are facilities? In our greed we have grabbed all the land and there is no space for our kids to kick ball. You wouldn't believe it but the tiny island of Pemba in neighbouring Tz has better sporting grounds than Nyanza and Western provinces which are the cradle of football in Kenya.
Zambia and a number of Western African countries e.g Burkina Fasso and dirt poor Niger have better facilities than the East African economic giant.
Kenya can only succeed in individual sport because we are very individualistic and greedy.

They were to leave this morning aboard a chartered flight direct to Cape Verde.

@Kaka2za....Its always good to have state of the Art facilities but without a good youth system hakuna mahali tunaenda.

Acakoro Football Academy from Korogocho recently bagged this year’s Donauauen Cup (U-11 tournament) after beating Barcelona 1-0 in the final played in Austria. Their facilities are no match for those found in Europe but they beat Juventus, Fulham, Borussia Dortmund and Barcelona in the tournament.

Do you honestly want to tell me that our Premier league clubs can't come up with youth teams na hapa we have one from Korogocho winning International tournaments against Europe's biggest teams.

The problem is that African teams end up losing top talent to countries that have better academies, some of those young players switch allegiance unaskia they are now French or English.

"Most of the football superpowers pickoff developing players from their former colonies and in return African teams get half-committed players like Kevin-Prince Boateng who couldn’t get a spot in the German team and only chooses to play for Ghana after every four years..."