Harambee Stars have the players, coach and hefty funding to deliver

The 15-year absence of Kenya’s Harambee Stars at the Africa Cup of Nations is finally over as a new dawn rises in the June 21 to July 19 football showpiece that will be staged in Egypt.

The wait, anxiety, hopes and dreams of our republic will be set loose at 11pm Kenyan time on June 23, a day after the tournament boots off, as we put our impressive African best defensive record in the qualifiers on the line against Algeria — a re emergent force among Africa’s elite. We later play Tanzania and Senegal to complete our first round fixtures.

All our three Group C matches will be played in Cairo, a city where both Harambee Stars and Kenyan clubs have an embarrassing record of humiliating losses, as is replicated in our stats whenever we have played in The Maghreb.

A little under two weeks before kick-off, Kenya’s grim history in North Africa is just one in a myriad of puzzles that Sebastian Migne and his technical staff, including top FKF leadership will be sweating on.

To begin with, this is one of Kenya’s best funded sporting expeditions in our history. For example, according to media records related to the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, the Kenyan contingent of about 160 athletes and officials ran expenditure amounting to a Sh244.3 million. Harambee Stars’ Afcon budget is about Sh280 million and involves a quarter of the Rio contingent.

In addition to the Sh260m, the federation will also receive Sh26 million from Confederation of African Football plus sponsorship from their partners, betting firm Betin that runs into millions of shillings.

Basically, the funding for Kenya’s Afcon quest sounds like a dream to anyone who has handled a Kenyan national team in a major global or continental assignment.

What makes it sound even better is money that will go to individual players as motivation. If we were to win the Afcon, each of the 23 players selected to travel to Egypt will pocket Sh2.25 million, translating to Sh51.75 million set aside for this scheme.

In all honesty, the figures above are only strange in Kenya considering the kind of bonuses that players in the top realm of African football receive for major tournaments — and even qualifiers.

Therefore, in this regard our football governors are just but trying to level the playing ground for our stars at Afcon 2019.

Still you cannot run away from the fact that it is a first here in Kenya, where tales of funds diverted or swallowed altogether is an everyday headline.

Also, considering the fact that our fans have a ridiculously high penchant for good results against extremely poor levels of real patronage and support for the team, mostly laid bare by paltry match attendance numbers.

This time around (with the monies available) Kenyans will most certainly demand the best, and crucify the team for anything but.

There it is. The challenge for Harambee Stars in Egypt. And the pressure is on, most primarily on the shoulders of a man little known in Kenya before our qualification, Monsieur Sebastien Migne.

The 46-year-old Frenchman made his name in African football by building a formidable Congo Republic Under-20 side and qualifying them to their first ever youth African Championship finals.

He was imminently promoted to the senior side in 2017 but lasted less than a year, after a disastrous run of results in qualifiers for the 2017 Nations Cup and that included ceding four points to Harambee Stars (a draw in Libreville and a loss in Nairobi).

Next time we heard of him, he was named Kenya’s head coach in March 2018, charged with leading Kenya to the 2019 Afcon finals initially scheduled for Cameroon.

At the time, Kenya had already lost their inaugural qualifier match 2-1 to Sierra Leone in June 2017, but were fresh from winning a first Cecafa title in 14 years.

PUT EXITS

The vacancy was actually only open upon the abrupt exit of the vastly experienced Belgian Paul Put.

Migne first seemed to fumble, with poor results in hurriedly assembled friendly matches in the Middle East and India, lining up many untested players and leaving many to wonder if he understood Kenyans, and whether he was fit for the job.

On September 8, 2018, I joined a paltry band of diehards that dotted the newly refurbished Moi International Sports Centre in Nairobi as we lined up against Ghana, joined by global football enthusiasts who wanted to see live the world famous Black Stars do their thing.

Again, the Frenchman went for a largely unfamiliar, untested line up in what was arguably Kenya’s biggest game in about five years.

Ninety minutes later, 1—0 was the full time score in Kenya’s favour, and this man Migne was instantly thrust into uncharted waters.

My Kasarani diaries recall that our best results against Africa’s giants in official competitions have been draws (most notably against Nigeria and Cameroon then later Morocco) all under the late Reinhardt Fabisch, in his last two stints as Kenya coach — in the late 1990s and early 2000s respectively.

That win inspired an impressive rally that included a 3—0 whitewash of Ethiopia at home, that came after barren draw away against the same team, four days earlier.

In the weeks that followed, Sierra Leone were disqualified by CAF, automatically sealing our qualification; not that they would have really stood in the way of that resolute outfit built around a water tight defence, overwhelming work rate and clinical finishing.

Those that followed the team’s entire qualification run, including the last group match, where Kenya held Ghana for 83 minutes at their Ohene Djan backyard before going down 0 -1 will concur that there is a method behind Migne’s results.

In summary, qualification was underlined by an impeccable defence record built around local upstarts over seasoned foreign-based stars.

Amazing how incredible stuff seems to tuck itself away in the shelves of memory.

Now, most view our national team’s manager, not as the master tactician who got us here, but as the little known debutant at Afcon.

We are scrutinising all his choices, critiquing, advising and almost instructing, mostly in subtle written pieces like this one and sometimes through overt calls and statements.

Suddenly, every Tom, Dick and Harry wants a say in who should be on the plane to Egypt, where we should set up residential camp and which friendlies we ought to play, all which is understandable, as this is about interest and passion.

I too must admit that as I set out to write this article, I was determined to lay out my many ideas on how to navigate Afcon in terms of selection, tactics and mind frame.

However, as I recalled each moment detailed above, I reconciled all factors, eventually arriving at this state of mind: overwhelming reverence and support for Sebastien Migne and those he is working with, including staff, federation leadership and most importantly his playing unit.

Most of all I begun to appreciate the mind of this Frenchman who has quenched a 15-year-old thirst for us to watch our own parade among Africa’s best.

If I engage in unpacking his latest choices, I believe it will be a disservice to the team and to my country.

I can affirm the fact that Sebastian Migne is so far well within his mystical methods.

Nonetheless, I hope that I have framed the stakes, hopes and expectations, and the ramifications of failure articulately.

If the core entities in the Afcon squad can muffle the noise and focus on interpreting his plan, we should be in the last 16 at the very least.

And to these core entities, mainly those in administrative roles, I have a soft whisper. Do not embarrass our country by falling for the same old petty moves that have perennially bedevilled our handling of duties as noble and important as this one.