Tough task ahead for Gor Mahia in Dar es Salaam

How will Kenya’s premier league defending champions Gor Mahia fare when they take on Tanzania’s Yanga FC in their first match of this year’s CECAFA Kagame Cup championship on Saturday 18?

Last year, the club’s return to a tournament they last won in 1985 was quite a disastrous one, failing to win a single match as they bowed out in the group stages.

This year though appears more promising, with the club fondly called Kogalo by its diehard supporters having strengthened in all departments. The acquisition of Meddie Kagere has bolstered a forward line that also boasts of the sharp shooting Michael Olunga, while the pair of Karim Nizigiyamana and Abouba Sibomana have made the team’s defence impenetrable to opposing attackers.

Meanwhile, Uganda’s Godfrey Walusimbi appears to be getting better on the left wing and the duo of  Collins “Gattuso” Okoth and Khalid Aucho (acquired from Tusker FC in the off-season, have made Gor’s midfield performances much more assured.

All this progress, however, will be severely tested on Saturday by the might of Tanzania’s Yanga FC. Not only is the Tanzanian club ranked in the same league of accomplishment as Gor Mahia, the team enjoys as fanatical a following in Tanzania as Gor does in Kenya.

Add to that the fact that Tanzania’s fans are more “real stadium” football supporters than their Kenyan counterparts and you begin to worry for a Gor team entering a capacity filled 60,000-seater stadium on Saturday afternoon to face an accomplished opponent on home soil.

Perhaps it is with this in mind that Gor’s Coach Frank Nuttal has adopted a cautious and modest approach heading to the tournament, telling local media that he was not thinking too much about the team’s performance beyond the group stages.

“We just want to try to give our best and the priority is to go past the group stages, so it means we have to do well in the early matches,” the coach told Daily Nation Sport a few days ago.

Whatever the coach’s expectations, the team had better perform better than they did last year in Rwanda. First of all, a poor performance in Dar es Salaam will most certainly affect the team’s current momentum, which has seen them sweep every one coming their way in local football - like a tsunami, to borrow a favourite metaphor of the club’s patron, Hon. Raila Odinga.    

Secondly, the team should do well in Tanzania to end the prevailing impression that Kenya’s football league is weaker than regional and continental ones, which is supported by the constant whipping that local football clubs receive whenever they venture beyond Kenyan borders.

Lest we forget, Tusker FC was the last Kenyan club to win the CECAFA Kagame Cup way back in 2008 under coach Jacob “Ghost” Mulee when they beat Uganda’s Uganda Revenue Authority FC in Dar es Salaam.