Robert Matano: Widely travelled coach with a Midas touch

Some people make the grade. Others don’t. Some try, succeed and leave while others stick around – even after winning all there is.

Robert Matano has been winning and winning, and he is still around.

Like Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho and his City counterpart Pep Guardiola – bullish, outspoken and stubbly -  Matano’s illustrious career reinforces the centuries old belief that football’s most beautiful element is that it is available to all in every part of the globe.  

The three managers are united by the sheer lack of filters in both speech and mannerism, the love for speaking their mind, which often involves addressing issues that most would ordinarily prefer to keep quiet about.

DEDICATED TACTICIAN

If Guardiola is a pure romantic and Mourinho a joyless strategist, then Matano is a dedicated tactician incapable of long term friendships yet always interesting to watch and think about.

“People say it’s about juju but the truth is that I am different because I combine my experience both as a coach and former player. I like winning, and I work hard for it,” he says.

Indeed, Matano is not your ordinary coach. The 53-year-old has put together a coaching career spanning 32 years during which he has shuffled in and out of 18 local clubs.

In his own words, he is yet to walk out of a club without having lifted at least one piece of silverware except during his stint with Ulinzi Stars between 2014 and 2016.

He has helped seven of the 15 teams he has handled gain promotion to the Premier League.

With such a glittering resume, lent currency by his recent success with AFC Leopards whom he guided to a record 11th GOtv Shield title this season, it is human for one to think that the former Tusker and Sofapaka coach is operating with the aid of the supernatural.

“Watch the people who say I consult witchdoctors because they might be the ones who believe in such. How else would one be so sure?

“You see, I don’t work in isolation. I have people who help me get statistics during every game. It is standard practice to speak with these helpers on the phone even in Europe.

“But here when you answer or make a call during a game they say you are using witchcraft. Witchcraft through the phone?

“I came here (Ingwe) when the team was disorganised. Players never used to come to training, but now things are different and we have won a trophy when nobody expected us to. Of course someone will call that witchcraft because they don’t know what you are capable of,” he offered.

Matano was appointed into the hot Leopards seat in July this year to take over from Italian Dorian Marin, who only lasted two weeks, and this marked his return to Premier League football after being sidelined by a life threatening illness for almost a year.

He found a team disenfranchised and hovering near the relegation zone and although he boasted a wonderful career having won the SportPesa Premier League with Tusker just four years back, few gave him a chance of collecting anything with the free-falling Ingwe.

Yet he moulded the team and built it back up weekend after weekend, his first order of business being to instil high level discipline in the playing unit.

Ugandan midfielder Allan Katerrega became the first victim of his harsh firmness as he found himself losing his position within the team after just two months.

“In life you cannot be good to everyone all the time. Sometimes, I am good but when the situation calls for it, I become harsh. But I cannot be harsh for something I haven’t taught someone or warned them of before.

“I don’t like it when a player makes it a habit to defy order. Anybody who doesn’t like order cannot be my friend because you cannot succeed without hard work, commitment and determination.

“That is why I can never work with players like Kateregga. They lack discipline. I like unity. I like to work with team players, not people who feel like they can do everything by themselves. Kateregga is that kind of player,” he said.

Listening to him speak, one might think that Matano is a fearsome, detached and difficult-to-please tactician whose very presence instils fear.

But watching him jump and laugh with his players during training at the St Paul’s University grounds, listening to him share in hearty laughter brought on by a joke cracked by a player, one realises that he is just a man of strict morals.

But coaching a community club where interference from management in terms of player selection is still rampant, how does “The Lion” cope?

“I am a professional coach. I select the right players for the right job. Everyone has their own interest, but you cannot just field players for the sake of pleasing people. I look at current form, and the game we are about to play.”

But even with Matano’s verve, even after leading Leopards to the domestic cup for the first time in four years, Ingwe continues to play second fiddle to their bitter rivals Gor Mahia, who won the 2017 SportPesa Premier League tie last week with four games to play.

To correct this, Matano prescribes a complete overhaul of the style of management at the club.

“AFC lost direction because of lack of order, ceaseless wrangles, mistrust, lack of consistency and worst of them all, poor methods of player recruitment.
“You don’t recruit players en masse every season. A club is not like parliament, where every constituency must be represented.

“Another important thing to note is that football without money is nothing. Stability in terms of finances and good management of the same. Gor Mahia are doing well because the chairman himself is well off and can bail the club out if need be.

The management must therefore look for ways of attracting more sponsors,” he says with a light chuckle.

'COACHING IS A SKILL'

And what does he think about the Kenyan national team?

Based on his long-standing career, has he ever thought about extending his coaching skills to Harambee Stars?

Matano, just like the legendary Dutch footballer Johan Cruyff, believes that football is all about inclusivity.

“If I was to become Harambee Stars coach, I would have been appointed long time ago. But they don’t appoint people based on merit.

“Worldwide, best practice demand you appoint someone based on their previous performance and their achievements; not appointing someone because they have won two games. Or because you want to mould someone. Coaching is a skill, and it is a process.”

“I started coaching in 1986 after I got injured while at AFC Leopards. I started small-time coaching at Pumwani. I have risen through the ranks up until now, which is why you now think I am worthy of becoming a national team coach.

“I don’t know of the other coaches but I offered Okumbi (Stanley) full support when he got appointed. I used to call him almost daily.

“But football is real. You cannot cheat people. And there is one thing in this world you can never buy, and that is experience. If you lack that then people will see because it is something you cannot hide.

OKUMBI INEXPERIENCED

“Okumbi is definitely inexperienced. And it is not just him. It’s the whole technical bench. I keep wondering why they cannot bring him someone whom he can learn from, or someone who can guide him.

But you cannot take people who are of the same age, same level of experience and put them together. Even if they are knowledgeable and qualified, there is nothing that can come out of that.

“I don’t want to speak about whether or not we shall achieve vision 2022 (of reaching the World Cup), but let the federation put Okumbi with people who can help him. Because we see things differently. Kenya is for us all, and we love the country. So many times we see things going wrong and we know we can help, but the (federation) doesn’t recognise us.

Matano, a former employee of Kenya Railways company, speaks with such authority based on tangible achievements that he has had over the years, not just in terms of silverware, but also in terms of mentoring players.

“I studied psychology in school, and I am an expert in dealing with players and bringing out the best in them. Many coaches don’t know that you must simplify teachings to the players.

“Most of the players we have are not high skilled, yet you find coaches imposing very technical aspects of training on them. That only helps in demoralising the players and making them lose self-esteem. 

“My role as a coach is to uplift players. That is why you can see some players in my team performing way better than they did in the first leg. It is only because they are well psyched. Many coaches depend on players, but I don’t depend on players. I build players.”

“Many people don’t know that I helped mould players like Victor (Wanyama), his brother Macdonald (Mariga), Musa (Otieno), Tom (Juma), Bonventure (Maruti), Zablon (Amanaka) and most recently, Michael (Olunga) at Tusker.”

WRITING A BOOK

Not wanting all that football knowledge to go down the drains, Matano, who led Sofapaka to the league title in their maiden season in top flight in 2009,  has embarked on writing a book documenting his vast experience both as a coach and player.

Like a real lion, Matano has conquered the kidney problem that caused him so much grief last year, an experience he doesn’t speak much about, but one that he says changed his life for the better.

“I am ok. I wouldn’t have been here. I was bed ridden, and couldn’t do anything. I wasn’t even at home. Most of the time, I was in hospital but I am very grateful because people really helped me through it.

“Now I am focused on eating healthy. I have made so many healthy choices in the last 12 months, and have cut down on red meat completely,” he said.

Some teams played for:
AFC Leopards, Abeingo, Hakati

Teams coached:

Pumwani Sportiff, Kenya Pipeline, Shamako Babes, Standard Bank, Re-Union, Bayer East Africa, Timsales, Kimbo, Green Berets, Gor Mahia, World Hope (now Nairobi City Stars), Sofapaka, AFC Leopards, Tusker, Ulinzi Stars, FC Leopards