Time to take youth development seriously
That Kenya players have poor ball skills is readily apparent. The fact that the leading scorer in the premier league scores a paltry 14 goals is proof positive that Kenya strikers and playmakers are sub par. When French coach Bernard Lama arrived a few years back, he exclaimed at the poor technical skills of Kenyan players. And none other than Kenyan legend Mike Okoth Origi recently noted that virtually no KPL player was good enough to play in a major European league due to poor ball skills.
The importance of youth development cannot be given a short shrift. Barcelona has recently shown the world what a world class youth development system can do for the club and indeed the country. Watching the Barca players confidently pass the ball around at close quarters and routinely shred defences with defence splitting passes then finish with aplomb makes one quickly realize that their players are well drilled, tactically astute and highly technical. This does not happen by accident but by having an effective youth development scheme that scouts the best players at various ages and exposes them to age appropriate coaching.
Indeed Europeans embraced youth development as far back as the 1950s. Yet to this day, hardly any Kenyan team has done so. In 1975, Italian Peter Pampuro coached Gor Mahia briefly. He established what was probably the first youth development scheme in Kenya. Eric Omwango was assigned as youth coach. The scheme was short lived and evaporated when Pampuro left. Eight years later, Len Julians arrived and he too attempted to start a youth scheme which lasted less than a year due to lack of funds. Still Julians made it a point to recruit young players with potential and turn them into classy players.
In 1980, German Bernard Zgoll established the Olympic youth development centers all over the country. Youth were recruited and trained under Zgoll. These centers unearthed and cultured players like Sammy Onyango “Jogoo”, Wilberforce Mulamba and Sammy Taabu. Sammy Onyango was perhaps the most compete player ever to don the Kogalo jersey. He was equally adept at shooting and crossing with either foot. His crosses had a Beckham like accuracy. Legendary AFC Leopards defender, Josephat Murila in an interview recently admitted that Jogoo was the player they feared most because he could score from anywhere including seemingly impossible angles. It is clear that Jogoo benefited heavily from Zgoll’s tutelage when he was in his mid teens.
Today Kogalo like other teams in the KPL make do with talented but low calibre players. Nobody doubts the talents of players like Lavatsa, Kevin Omondi or Musa Mohammed. But their rawness of their talents is often exposed in their inability to consistently find the back of the net when presented with a chance or their lack of tactical awareness, poor positioning or their inability to effectively use their weaker foot. Kenyan players usually learn to play mostly in the streets where they learn bad field habits.
Today, each KPL team is required to field a U-19 team that plays in a brief tournament. But having a youth team hardly amounts to youth development. None of those players are receiving the tutelage that will turn them into classy players at senior level. Perhaps the only local team with a decent youth system is Thika United. They even have a scholarship system for talented players that is funded by Brookside dairies.
Brookside which is the parent company of Tuzo, expressed interest in establishing a similar scheme for Gor Mahia. Ideally this would involve hiring a qualified youth coach. Preferably one who has received a certification from the Netherlands. Establish a partnership with a local secondary school recruiting talented players aged 14 or 15, and offer the players scholarships to attend the school where the coach can train them and monitor their progress on a daily basis until they reach 19 upon which those who are good enough can be promoted to the senior team or sent on loan with other teams. Eventually the youth scheme would grow to incorporate under 13 players.
It is true that Kogalo often signs young players. But sometimes, promoting a young player to senior level too quickly can destroy the players confidence. This year Roy Okal, a 16 year old from Homa Bay joined the team and has not had any impact, Worse still his development is being stifled as he rots on the bench instead of playing. A similar scenario happened to Maurice Odhiambo who joined Kogalo when only 15. So promising was he that he event went to Europe for 6 months. Yet He now plays in the nationwide league. Okal and other teens should be playing under the tutelage of a youth coach who can teach him the critical fundamentals such as the ability to effectively use both feet. At that age, the focus should be on grasping fundamentals, getting rid of bad habits and working on technical skills. The pressure of having to win a league game should not be the over-riding factor.
A solid youth development scheme will produce the high calibre players needed to win games consistently and compete with the best in Africa. A good scheme will also generate revenue because players will routinely be sold to European clubs. It is likely that Ted Akumu would have passed his Denmark trials with flying colours had he developed the proper skills. George Odhiambo “Blackberry” has not had much success in Europe either and can mostly be found on the bench. One can only guess that factors such as lack of tactical awareness are impeding his chances. Meanwhile Asec Mimosas in Cote’d Ivoire has a superb youth scheme whose products have found success at the highest levels of football. Players like Didier Zokora, Yaya Toure, Dindane, Kolo Toure, Gervinho, Eboue, Salomon Kalou and many others.
It’s never too late. Rather than Rachier rushing to build a stadium (this could’ve been a campaign gimmick), i’d rather he focusses his energy on developing a Youth Academy for Kogalo. Like all successful business ventures, investment in key resources is mandatory at an early stage. In football this must be in young players. Meanwhile news that Kogalo are talking to Rama Salim’s and Victor Ochieng’s agents is welcome. More importantly we need very good full backs to help us go forward in attack as well as defend. At the moment Nasio looks a spent force while the left back position has never been consistent in the last 3 seasons.
The writer of the above article is 100% right on youth development. Gor Mahia’s future lies in the youth football and more focus need to be placed on the development of youth football. In yesterday’s comment, I had some excellent observations on how we can develop our team for posterity.
I strongly urge our executive committee under the leadership of Wakili Ambrose Rachier and able Secretary General Mr. George Bwana to come up with a blue print on how our club can set up an aggressive youth football team that will replicate the playing pattern and style of Gor Mahia. This can be a beginning and I can assure all bloggers and fans that within a period of 3-5 years, we as a team are going to reap benefits of this youth set up.
Our fans can become scouts all over the country in order to tap talents from different age categories. This will be an expensive investment at the beginning but in the long it will offer huge benefits to our club.
At the national front, we have lots on raw talents that need to be tapped and FKA under the leadership of Sam Nyamweya needs to do something about youth football. Our national team will never qualify for world cup if we do not change on overall broad strategy in football development activities. The future of our national team will be determined on how readiness we are in developing youth football in the country. Without proper youth development programme and structure, our national team will remain irrelevant as far as football matters are concerned both in CAF and FIFA football. Looking at Kenya global FIFA ranking, where is Kenya?
The football leaders both at the FKA and club levels need to seriously think on how we can develop our football skills that need to start from the youth/academies level, club levels to the national team.
We need to come up with broad football strategies for 3 years, 5 years, 8 years, 12 years, 15 years and 21 years periods. In this we can come up with competitions for under 10 years, under 12 years, under 15 years, under 18 years and under 21 years for our clubs and national team to get anywhere within the strategies framework.
you have said it all… and i have nothing else useful enough to add…!
Good write-up. Looking at the current K’Ogalo magazine there’s a good article on how GM organised a schools tournament for under 13 and the refreshing thing was seeing the kids in full GM Tuzo regaia. This is the way to go as we kill two birds with one stone. Basically we are getting the kids aspiring to join GM and their parents/guardians becoming part of the green army.
The current young players in GM need mentoring which was missing from the tech bench. Otherwise players like Okal, Macheda, Akumu, Lavatsa etc should be the future of Kenya soccer. Unfortunately some of the talent is killed even before it blossoms. An example is Akumu. His game currently is not what we witnessed last year. His confidence level has also dipped. For Macheda all is there for us to see, hope he overcomes all this and rediscovers himself.
On the plans for an academy and a stadium/infrastracture development this should go hand in hand. Currently the academies in town lack proper training facilities and we all know how a poor training surface contributes to poor skills from players. With hostels/houses and a playing field the cost of maintaining players can be easily reduced as they spend more time and money commuting to and from the training venue.
Good points and i hope implementation started yesterday! Starting with tournaments for under 12’s, 15’s and 17’s, picking the best there, engage the parents for support and understanding, enrol them in the academy, both in a programmed xtra curriculum and academic, things wil work out miraculous in a span of 3-5yrs. Sponsors wil just join in once a good program is on course, no big deal!
@Pod Antie, I would consider the club stadium ahead of the academy if I were the chairman as well. Why? The moment GM has its own stadium, it will be a serious source of revenue for the club. That revenue can then be used to develop the much talked about youth academy. Otherwise as it stands now, somebody please tell us how you will finance an academy if the main team is proving too difficult to financially handle through out the season. I am sure all club desire to have the youth academies but are financially challenge.
Players always have good and bad form during the season. I dont want to belief that this is a coaching problem. If it is, I beg somebody on this blog to explain to me how. Teddy did not have a very good form in the just concluded season. However in the last 2 games, he looked like he was picking up his old form. That is very normal. For God and my club Kogallo
@Albert Kosero (Sofaset Branch – Kampala), getting funds to finance youth and academy football activities is not difficult at all. The most important thing is to package the youth football projects with more benefits and social investment aspects. The package is what sells and this will definitely bring funding to the club.
A DREAM WILL ALWAYS BE A DREAM UNLESS ACTED UPON
A Youth Development for K’Ogalo has been on the cards for sometime now.
To illustrate my point, i will refer you to my favorite inspirational book, The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. A young boy named Santiago who dreams of travelling the world to seek the most wonderful treasures known to man.. From his home in Spain, he journeys to the markets of Tangiers and, from there, into the Egyptian desert………Did the boy find the treasures afterall? Yes. He found the treasures from the same spot he abandoned to seek elsewhere.
What is the moral of the story?
This story inspire us all to follow our dreams. According to the article above, two men, an Italian Peter Pampuro and later Len Julians laid the foundation of a youth program at K’ogalo. Although the article reported the scheme collapsed for lack of funds, I beg to differ.
I apportion by blame on the poor leadership at the time. Men ( I bet there was no woman) who sat around the table with these two men and failed to internalize the vision they had for the club. Instead of consolidating the gains made by the ‘two white men’ , they chose to do things the African way or worse still, the Kenyan way. And that is, destroying the structures already in place. No wonder, 43 years since GM is established, the club is still sourcing for a place to put up an office. Are we really serious for this club?l
The elections are over. It is time for action. I urge our leaders to roll up their sleeves and start to deliver the services they promised fans in their manifesto. Daring to dream big is not bad but we can only get there if we take measured and calculated steps.
@Mwakio, good idea though it is easier said than done. I do not want to believe that all the EC’s Gor have had, no one has thought along those lines. Even if we look outside Gor, I want to believe many soccer administrators share your thoughts. The challenge is to sell such a package in this part of the world. We are still very far. I may sound pessimist but the reality is that it will take us some good years before we realise such dreams. For God and my club Kogallo.
I wonder who Albert Kosero (Sofaset Branch is speaking for! must he always give views that are different from the rest of us! Anyway he’s entitled to say anything.
Youth development is easier than constructing a stadium.
Kosero, ever heard of mega structures? Do you know the cost of a football stadium, even as basic as City Stadium? Am not a building econ graduate, nor structurally numerate, but City Stadium would cost no less than Kes 500M. Let’s stop dreaming about it. We’ve learnt how to outsource. The real revenue stream for a football lies in gate collections and merchandise sales. The former can be shared with owners of the stadium, the latter purely what Roseline ‘Jaber Machon’ will conjure up her marketing sleeves. Kosero, did u know that Inter Milan and AC Milan share a stadium? U think Berlusconi cannot build a stadium all on his own? For Kogalo, the answer lies in Youth Academy, beautiful flowing soccer which equal to flow of fans. The rest is history.
admin,well said!.i have always been a strong critic of most of your articles.i have accused you of copy and paste articles which more often than not lack depth and are not interesting to read,on this i have not been alone.
But on this one,you have not only researched well,you have also written something refreshing,well thought out,objective and something that really add value to the club.kudos,keep it up!!!!
@Pundit post 9, and who do you speak for? I am speaking on behalf of ZD. Why do you want to believe that I cannot speak for my self. If youth development is as easy as you want to put it why is it taking ages to achieve that simple task not only in GM but Kenya as a whole. I dont think its easy as some of you want to make it appear. It requires alot of investment which I mentioned is not readily available. Its not just a matter of assembling schoolboys in an open field kind of a business. My views are not different from what everybody else is saying, NOT at all. I am only saying its a tall order. It is achievable just as ndugu Mwakio (post 6) has stated, but the problem is selling it to those who can buy it. You are aware that even as we speak some KPL teams have no sponsors. There is more mileage in sponsoring a KPL team than a youth project and yet some teams still do not have sponsors. For God and my club Kogallo
@Kosero Thanks for your usual entertainment. Your posts make for funny reading.
Youth schemes are not that difficult to develop. Thika United are doing it albeit with limited success.
A stadium is a pipe dream. Most teams in Spain, Italy and Germany do not own their own stadiums and Rachier would like us to believe we can own a stadium ? That was just a campaign gimick. Sad to see that some people fell for it. Just recently, KPA spent ksh 40 million to put a perimeter fence around their stadium and thats just the fence.
Meanwhile a proper youth scheme will cost less than ksh 1 million a year. The only reason it has not been done is lack of foresight.
There are already youth academies being run by individuals in Kenya such as FISA in South B. If an individual can run FISA then why cant a club like Kogalo have its own scheme ? In fact Kogalo should do better than FISA
Due to financial constraints lets make do with what we have.
1.Hire a mature,sober professional technical bench on a FULL TIME basis with clearly defined roles n headed by the head coach cum technical director,
2.One of the asst. coaches,under supervision of the head coach, shld have a part of his duties coaching(both tactically n technically) the particulary senior youths
3.The EC can invite experts or send our coaches for seminars to improve the quality of our coaching programs youth included
Admin. Just read some article on the K’Ogirlo Divas organising a CSR activity over the weekend at the Railways club. Give us such info as well and not just on the football activities. GM has now grown to more than just a soccer club and the followers are showing that they value the less-fortunate in the community as well. Do not be put off by those who will criticize you for cutting and pasting stories from other sources but we need them here as well. Some of us rely solely on this site to get the latest info on GM. Otherwise Kudos for the job you are doing so far. Has Rama joined us? Daily Nation is saying yes while the other sources like futaa.com are saying that negotiations are on-going. Somebody please tell us. Ogango Trailer, any news on this and who are our other targets?
Thanks a million for this article. It is not only Gor Mahia who need a youth development system but the country as a whole. Have you asked yourself why Spain and Germany are dominating football scene in the world at the moment? It is because they went back to basics, the national federation together with the management of the Laliga and Bundesliga sat down and agreed on a unified football curriculum to be used for training at all junior levels. All teams were required to train the academy players using the same techniques with emphasis on ball control,possesion and movement. The end results are players like Ozil, Goetze, Muller,emerging from Bundesliga, Alcantara,Pedro,Iniesta from Spain. The national team coach Kimanzi should sit down with FKA and advise them on the football blueprint for this country. To do this Patrcik Naggi needs to leave as he has nothing new to offer for this country in terms of football development. One asks how can we do it.It is possible, we have top performing football schools in the country,kakamega High, St Anthony to name but a few. We need to take the coaches of this schools put them on month’s course and send them back and we shall see the outcome for ourselves. Immediate results with recycling of old players in the national team will not work. Youth developement and talent identification is the way to go.
ADMIN ,THIS I DARE SAY IS THE BEST ARTICLE YOU HAVE EVER POSTED IN THIS FORUM FOR DISCUSSION.MWAKIO,I AND OTHERS HAVE ALWAYS ADVOCATED OR THIS GAMECHANGER THE ACADEMY WHICH WE CAN BUILD WITH AS LITTLE AS 15 MILLION.WE CAN THEN SOURCE FOR QUALIFIED EXPATRIATE STAFF-PREFERABLY DUTCH TO TEACH THE LIKES OF PRO,AWILO,THE BASICS OF YOUTH SOCCER DEVELOPMENT.SOBER BLOGGERS SHOULD IGNORE ZD/KOSERO AS WE WERE ONCE ADVISED THAT GROWING OLD IS MANDATORY,BUT GROWING UP IS OPTIONAL.LET THOSE WHO DREAM OF A STADIA ENJOY THEIR SIESTA.AN ACADEMY IS JUST LIKE A HIGH SCHOOL OFFERING BOARDING FACILITIES AND SCHOLARSHIPS TO THE MOST TALENTED SOCCER PLAYERS IN THE REGION.WE HAVE INDIVIDUALS RUNNING THESE SCHOOLS E.G JMJ AND FISA AND THEY ARE SLOWLY SMILING ALL THE WAY TO THE BANK AS KPL CLUBS CRY FOUL-KISUYAS CASE.THE ISSUE OF AN ACADEMY/YOUTH CENTER SHOULD FORM THE CORE OF NEXT SEASONS CALENDAR.THE STADIUM ISSUE IS JUST BAR TALK-USELESS EUPHORIA COUPLED WITH EMPTY PROPAGANDA
I’m a Nigerian sports analyst. And i’ve recently been following your club and players. I admire the structure of ‘Gor’ and i hope you succeed with the youth programme- thats if your management considers it important.
Nigeria is flooded with thousands of football academies, all of different standards and most of our clubs, e.g Enugu Rangers Int’l and Enyimba Int’l have feeder(youth) teams that play regularly in the national amateur league. You guys may want to start from there.
Great article though. Best of luck next season.
gormahia it is best team in kpl and am supporting gormahia and i like to be come one of player. one day insha allah. i wanna join gurmahia team..