THE WORST

Kenya Football Coaches Association secretary Bob Oyugi has termed the Kenya Under-17 team preparations as the worst he has ever seen of a national representative side.

“In my life as a coach of the youth, I have never seen such disastrous preparations. How can we let our youth train for two days and then go for an international fixture,” Oyugi said on Tuesday.

Kenya under-17 were humiliated 3-1 by soccer minnows Somalia last Friday in an African Youth Championship, qualifier, first leg first round match in Djibouti.

Played under protest

The team returned to the country on Monday full of excuses for their loss, from losing kit on transit to Djibouti, playing under protest because the match commissioner had not arrived by kick off, to playing with only eight players.

“They should stop creating excuses. Our preparations were just shoddy. It is a high team Football Kenya Limited got organised instead of frustrating and destroying our youngsters,” Oyugi, who boasts many years of youth football development, said.

The Under-17 lads indeed had a harrowing experience. The coach, Sammy Omollo was appointed barely a week before the fixture and had just a couple of days to prepare a side.

The team failed to travel on Thursday as scheduled because several players had yet to secure their travel documents and instead flew out early Friday morning.

“We arrived in Djibouti on Friday 9th, 1 pm and straight away went for the pre-match meeting,” Philip Mukui, the Under-17 team manager said.

Mukui said they played under protest because the match commissioner had not arrived by kick off time and that the Somali passports did not appear genuine.

“Our complaints caused a lot of emotions and we were really intimidated,” Mukui said.

The Kenya team management also said they played the second half with only eight players after three were ejected for lacking proper sheen guards.

But reached on phone from Djibouti, the Somali Football Association general secretary Abdiqani Said said Kenya’s complaints were much ado about nothing.

“All referees arrived in time. The match commissioner showed up a few minutes after the match had started,” Said said.

Shin guards

The Somali official added that three Kenyan players were removed from the match in the 80th minute after it was discovered they did not have shin guards.

“They were lucky they were not discovered before the match started otherwise they would have played the whole match with less players,” the SFA official observed.

Somali unexpectedly took a three-goal lead with a score either half from Jabril Mohamed followed by Hassan Mohammed’s strike before Kenya pulled a goal back through Kevin Kingatwa in the closing stages.

FKL technical director Patric Naggi lauded the team for a good show saying they played under difficult circumstances.

Kenya must overturn the two goal deficit in Nairobi on April 24 to advance to the first round.

“That is our main task. We have two weeks to organize ourselves. Let us stop giving excuses and instead concentrate on organization,” Oyugi said.