Gor Mahia FC players in a past football match. (picture courtesy of michezoafrica.com)
The match between Gor Mahia of Kenya and Ferroviaro de Maputo of Mozambique in the continental CAF Cup has just ended and the results are in favour of the Mozambican team.
Of course, the odds were against Gor Mahia and those who expected the team to win must have been day dreaming! The environment in the club is not conducive for productive work, they were up against a 3-0 deficit suffered two weeks earlier in Maputo and the fans expectations are unrealistically high!
Recent events in the club were a pointer to the kind of crisis that is facing the club. As much as Gor Mahia’s fans are ardent, that alone cannot guarantee them success in the current competitive environment in both the premier league and in the continental arena.
The support that Gor Mahia enjoys from its fans is a double-edged sword; on the one hand, it gives players the motivation that they need to push them to win, while on the other hand, it puts so much pressure on the players. I believe that the penalty that Gor Mahia lost in the match was simply because of the pressure that the player felt. A player taking a penalty in such circumstances knows that he is putting his head on the chopping board!
I believe that Gor Mahia is still paying the price of sacking former coach Zedekiah ‘Zico’ Otieno. As much as the team’s performance in Zico’s time had gone down, I believe he should have been given more time to try and rectify on the weaknesses in the team. He had stayed with the team long enough to know its weaknesses.
Look at how the owners of Arsenal in the UK premier league have given Arsene Wenger support, even with a performance that has not been so impressive lately.
Gor Mahia fans should learn to be patient. When you look at football teams all over the world, it is the norm for the performance of teams to swing up and down in a season. What is happening in Gor Mahia is no exception. If the team is not performing to the expectations of the fans and officials, the remedy is not to sack the technical bench but to try and dissect the problems bedeviling the team.
A local radio station hosted one of the members of the outgoing technical bench who claimed that the team officials are interfering with the selection of players. If this is true, then it means that even if a new team is appoint
Gor Mahia FC officials addressing the press in a past function. They have been accused of interfering with team selection. (picture courtesy of michezoafrica.com).
ed and such practices continue, then the team’s success will not be guaranteed.
The technical bench that has just been sacked had lost a number of
matches in a row. If this happens with the new team led by Bobby Ogolla, which is highly likely to happen given the circumstances, will the officials sack the technical bench again?
A coach should be given enough time to build a team and allow the playing unit to jell. This is what many clubs in Kenya are not ready to do. Recently we have seen a number of teams sacking and hiring new coaches because they are not performing.
But the contrary practice in other places has yielded better results. We need to borrow a leaf from our Ugandan neighhbours. The Ugandan national football team coach Bobby Williamson has been with the team for close to five years now and it is yielding better results for the Uganda Cranes compared to Kenya’s Harambee Stars which has had a high turnover of coaches in the same period. That is as it should be.
Gor Mahia Secretary General George Bwana made a statement that does not augur well for the team’s technical bench when he said that they are hiring Bobby Ogolla as an interim coach while the team’s ultimate goal is to hire a foreign coach. This was a big blunder.
Which coach can take charge of a team and commit himself to his job if he knows that his joining the team is only a stop-gag measure? No wonder Bobby Ogolla has been reported to have demanded a permanent engagement before he could take up the job.
Every one needs security of tenure in his work and Bobby Ogolla is no different. I believe he is right. The Gor Mahia officials should know that they cannot have the leisure of hiring and firing coaches like Roman Abramovich of Chelsea since they do
Bobby Williamson, Uganda Cranes national coach. He has been in charge of the team for the last five years with impressive results. (picture courtesy of supersport.com)
not have the financial muscle to do that.
Abramovich can hire and fire at will; not Gor Mahia!
The Gor Mahia
fans and officials, led by the chairman Ambrose Rachier, should take a hard look at issues surrounding the team and stop looking for short term solutions which will not work for the good of the team in the long run.
Ambitious they may be, but they should know that too much ambition will break the players and the team.
Comments