Harambee Stars head coach Engin Firat has fumed at the lack of respect he has apparently witnessed since the team’s 5-0 thrashing at the hands of Mali in a World Cup qualifier in Morocco on Thursday.
The tactician was bashed for his tactics and poor decisions that led to Kenya’s heavy defeat, essentially putting the 2022 World Cup dream in jeopardy. And now, the tactician, who is on a two-month contract has lashed out at his critics who he says have chosen to pick just one side of his career, a disastrous spell with Moldova that saw him stay on the job without a single victory.
“You can criticize me, but don’t question my pride and loyalty. I am not young anymore. I have coached many countries and I don’t need anyone to tell me whether I am good or not. I have my self confidence,” the tactician fumed. He added; “Some people want to make dirty news and the public listens to them. All the time they are talking about my record with Moldova. You want to judge me by just one job?”
"You had foreign coaches before. Where did they coach in Europe? Youth Teams? Reserve teams? And You want to compare me with them? Criticise what I am doing here but stay away from manipulating the public. I show respect and I also want people to show me respect,” added the coach as he fumed.
Football Kenya Federation President Nick Mwendwa on the other hand came under fire from a section of Kenyans after his comments on the quality of Harambee Stars players. In an interview with NTV on Monday evening, Mwendwa attempted to explain the federation’s decision to opt for a short term coach noting that Mali boasts of a better squad than Kenya. "Even if you bring (Jose) Mourinho or (Mikel) Arteta here, the work that needs to be done is we need to bring talent to the table, for you to win you need quality players. Let's look at Mali, are we better than them? The answer is no because we never brought our players to that level." He said.
"We have built coaches at the lower level, they are building talent that is going to come tomorrow, we looked at it and said we need to have a coach at a high level who can do this in a short term manner, we always wanted a long term coach but for the first time we said it's the World Cup qualifiers and we needed someone for four games so that we can review his performances," added Nick.
To transform Kenya into a top footballing nation, Mwendwa noted that his administration is training coaches to help develop talents and went on to defend the hiring of Firat on a stop-gap measure.
"Do we have a player like Moussa Djenepo but what are we doing to build that player? We have 25 coaches today, having four months of training for the first time in Kenya for our CAF B. We are doing that so that they can find us a Moussa Djenepo or a Bissouma. If you look at Moldova, I can tell you they don't have half the talent we have. They went to France and lost 2-1 against a top side, they went to Denmark and drew, they don't have half the talents we have, we can debate whether he is a top coach or not," explained Mwendwa.