Harambee Stars lifted our gloom with dramatic win

What you need to know:

  • Kenya national team lifted our misery with dramatic win against Tanzania’s Taifa Stars

In terms of the destiny of this year’s Africa Cup of Nations, Harambee Stars’ twice come-from-behind victory over Tanzania’s Taifa Stars may not move the needle even one degree.

The big boys from West and North Africa are still expected to win the competition and ours may yet take an early flight home. Yet in terms only known to millions of Kenyans, the dramatic 3-2 triumph was everything.

In the middle of the night, awake as if daybreak had just happened, the clock of bad news stopped and our psychotherapy begun: we didn’t care any more about stories of high-level assassination plots, cynical incitements to violence on foreign business people, the potential auctioning of the Kenyatta International Convention Centre over debts or even the suspicious-looking small mountain of PhDs awarded by a local university last week.

DRAINED THE OXYGEN

All these had become too much. For those of us still with the stamina for it, every encounter with the news drained the oxygen in the room some more and we were steadily running out of breathe.

We needed help.

So we turned to Harambee Stars whose history of raising our hopes and then crushing them is long and well documented. But this time, our boys were acutely aware of our dire circumstances and played as if national survival was at stake.

Life is at its best when you see sayings of the wise put to brilliant practical use and Harambee Stars did just that on Thursday night: it isn’t over until it is over, slipping is not the same thing as falling, “kutangulia sio kufika” (getting ahead doesn’t necessarily mean arriving first.)

The road ahead is difficult, what with Sadio Mane’s wounded Senegal looming in the near distance. But our boys should rest easy with the knowledge that their example will be used to illustrate to school children the virtue of resilience.

They fell a goal behind not once but twice and still ended victorious.

That is a good example. Don’t give up for as long as there is time on the clock. Don’t be afraid to make changes in your plans because your original strategy may not be suited to the current circumstances. Don’t panic. And most important of all: respect your opponent who is solely responsible for bringing out the best in you.

Don’t deliberately injure him.

I won’t be surprised if Thursday night’s performance turns out to be Harambee Stars’ best performance in the competition. I will simply understand.
Since before biblical times, blood feuds are the most intense.

In the days preceding this clash, I could sense the overwhelming desire for both teams to beat each other and please forget all those diplomatic niceties about “our two sisterly countries.”

If Harambee Stars fall behind against Senegal in their upcoming match, I suspect they might not be able to dig out the reserves of energy they showed against Tanzania because losing to the Lions of Teranga will somehow be less humiliating than a defeat by their “brotherly neighbours.” This applies to Tanzania’s match against Algeria as well.

From a technical point of view, I was gratified that Michael Olunga, who was away without official leave in the game against Algeria, finally turned on the performance expected of a striker. Both his goals were delicious.

The first was a spectacular overhead strike and the second surprised Taifa Stars’ defenders and goalkeeper with its lack of notice of intent. The space in which it was made was outrageously narrow – and that is the hall mark of a first rate striker.

GOAL OF THE TOURNAMENT

In all honesty, I am scared of the Lions of Teranga. After seeing off Taifa Stars with what I consider the best goal of the tournament in their second strike, they gave an uncharacteristically muted performance against Algeria’s Desert Foxes.

I don’t know if they were playing for a draw that didn’t materialize or their winning game plan just went awry.

A draw would have served their purpose — and Algeria’s too - as the two predators stalked East African prey.

But now Algeria are in and Tanzania are out — barring a mathematical miracle.

The Lions are hungry and it is Harambee Stars in their sights. Senegal are a very solid team.

They are the most powerfully built group of players of all the 24 nations and their skills match those of any.

Against Harambee Stars, I expect them to come out roaring with all the focus of a pride with hungry cubs to feed – their fans. I find it difficult to imagine Africa’s top ranked team allowing itself to fight for a round of 16 as best placed third finisher, much less go out at the group stage.

If Olunga must be beyond his best, our leaking wing back positions, especially the right flank so badly exposed by Taifa Stars, must be overhauled.

Both their goals came from there. It seems as if defensive midfielder and captain Victor Wanyama will have added duties.

I don’t claim I know how they would do it but I desperately wish Harambee Stars can conjure up something against Senegal.

It is not beyond them; they upset a “mkokoteni” (hand cart) full of farm produce when so much to all of us buffeted by bad news.

But there are those Kenyans who counsel that we should know people and limit our desires. They think that we should cultivate empathy.

I read a Twitter post by Dr Ouma Oluga, the perceptive medical trade unionist after our 2-0 defeat by Algeria.

He said: “We wait for Algerians during athletics. For now, let us also feel what they feel when Eliud Kipchoge just runs like Algerians aren’t part of the marathons.”

Maybe, but it is hard.

A blast from the past:

The personal involvement of Tanzania’s President John Pombe Maghufuli in this particular match between the Stars did not come from the blue.

It spoke to the political rivalry, founded on ideological differences that two neighbours have pursued since their independence.

They sharply distrust each other, the Tanzanians more so than the Kenyans.

When Harambee Stars went to Dar es Salaam for the 1981 East and Central African Challenge Cup, Tanzania was in the grip of shortages of all essential items, food being at the top of the list. Relations between the two countries were at a great low.

Tanzanians labelled capitalist Kenya a man-eat-man society — nyang’au (hyenas) — and Kenya responded by calling its socialist neighbor a man-eat-nothing society.

Mahmoud Abbas, Kenya’s goalkeeper of that time, used one Cecafa Challenge Cup game against Taifa Stars to showcase Kenya’s prosperity: in a group match, he threw six pieces of new Lux toilet soap at the Tanzanian fans massed at the terraces of the National Stadium.

Soap was one of the missing items on Tanzanian shop shelves and there was a stampede to pick up the rare treasures.

But commentators screamed blue murder at his effrontery.

However, this was not the impudence that gave rise to the moniker “golikipa mchawi” (goalkeeping wizard) that the Tanzanians later gave him.
There seemed to be an element of the supernatural to quite a number of Abbas’ performances.

Before Kenya and Tanzania lined up for the final of the Challenge Cup on one bright afternoon in November, Abbas had had a long communion with his coach, Marshall Mulwa.

He remembered it thus: “For most of the day, we sat together, just the two of us. ‘Captain, he said to me, ‘you don’t know how good you are. Nobody can beat our defence. Last year, we played well but we lost because we had a very young team. But now we are a lot more mature.’”

As game time neared, Mulwa issued his instructions to Abbas. He told him: “You will win the toss.

“And when you do, I want you to select the side of the goal where you conceded five goals last year.

“Do that, and I am assuring you we are going to win the Cup today.”

Kenya had the previous year been hammered 5-0 by Taifa Stars in a World Cup qualifying game with all goals being scored in one end.

And it was Abbas who had conceded them. Mulwa wanted Abbas to start in that goal after winning the toss. Now the goalkeeper asked his coach: “Suppose I lose the toss?”

“You won’t!” Mulwa told him.

“I am telling you, you won’t lose the toss. Just do as I am telling you!” He was both instructive and persuasive.

And so Abbas went for the toss with nothing but faith in his coach. The referee flipped the coin in the air and, voila! Mysteriously as Mulwa had said, Abbas won the toss.

He selected the designated goal.

“There was a strong wind blowing from the direction of the sea,” he remembered.

“This wind blew a huge paper bag, such as the one used to cover a bale of unga (flour), into the goal I had selected.

The bag travelled such a great distance into the goal without anybody stopping it that it instantly became the subject of much talk among the superstitious Tanzanians.

“I picked it up from the back of the net and threw it at the crowds. Suddenly, I heard shouts of “Mchawi! Mchawi! Mchawi!” (Wizard! Wizard! Wizard!).


To my knowledge, that is when I became the goalkeeping wizard and it is thanks to our good Tanzanian neighbours.”

A peek into the future:

Never expect Harambee Stars to win the Africa Cup of Nations before one of its nursery teams wins the Fifa Under-17 or Under-20 World Cup.

Trees are climbed from the bottom, not from the top.