Coaches, players, officials offer reasons for CECAFA exit
As Gor Mahia players pack their bags to leave Kigali for home to resume their league campaign, the various stakeholders and observers are offering their views on why Gor Mahia exited early from the CECAFA cup.
Coach Bobby Williamson has indicated that the mass exit of dependable players affected the team negatively.
“We have been through tough times and the exit of influential players like Teddy (Anthony), Rama (Salim) and Kevin (Omondi) affected us.
“We were unlucky too and you could see that a natural scorer like Sserunkuma (Dan) could not convert the many chances we had here,” he told michezoafrika.com
Williamson and others such as fullback Godfrey Walusimbi faulted poor officiating.
“I cannot even celebrate that goal. I am so disappointed with the final result. We played well today and we were let down by poor officiating. The referee did not make some crucial calls and they cost us the game,” explained Walusimbi after the APR game.
Williamson concurred
“I am very upset with the referee and his assistants. The wrong calls that they made have cost as the match,” said an emotional Williamson”
Musa Otieno, a long serving Kenya national team captain and now assistant coach of the national team blamed bad luck.
“When you scrutinize Gor Mahia’s performances and results in Rwanda, you will agree with me the team was quite unlucky,” former Harambee Stars captain and newly appointed national team assistant coach Musa Otieno opined on SuperSport’s weekly football show Simba Super Soccer.
Franklin Obare a former Tusker player and KPL player of the year blamed falling standards of football in the country
“We need to take a hard look at ourselves and accept that our rivals in the region have caught up with us in terms of performances,” former Kenya Breweries (Tusker’s forerunner) and Harambee Stars forward Frankline Obare said to the Nation.
“We are no longer the regional superpowers, atleast that is what the results in Kigali imply,” added Obare who won the competition as a Kenya Breweries player in 2001.
Former Gor Mahia coach and player James Sianga has blamed poor coaching and a lack of youth development structures.
“Football is evolving but we are standing still, we urgently need to work on improving our coaching skills and invest in spying on our opponents,” James Siang’a, who is one of East Africa’s most successful coaches, said.
Others like Chemelil coach Mike Mururi decided to show a lack of class and take pot shots at Gor Mahia.
“Gor Mahia are suffering from a self-inflicted problem. They are used to local referees favouring them to win matches in Kenyan Premier League. When they get neutral officials it becomes difficult for them to perform and this is what happened in Rwanda,” Mururi told goal.com.
Back to the KPL
With Gor Mahia out of the GoTV shield and havuing failed to win the Top 8 and the CECAFA cup, the KPL is their last opportunity to avoid a trophyless season. Hopefully the players will learn from their mistakes and apply the lessons going forward.
Muiruris name betrays him.
thats water under the bridge, i wish all those eminent personalities to tell us what to do to win the TPL, that would help me more than the cecafa analysis that they give me. they are commenting nothing new. as for mururi, thats his opinion which he is entitled to.my priority is how to take advantage of the three matches at hand and we would be home and dry, at 47 points, our nearest competitors can kiss us goodbye,
This Chemelil coach…..ok hope we meet soon,to me CECAFA was a squad formation tourney after the exit of our players,back to KPL.,,kama kawa next patient Sony then KCB
Muiruri,your name betrays you.How many cases has Gor Mahia FC been favoured?is this the coach whose side(Chemelil) we beat in Mumias?Please focus on uplifting the standards of your team.
I hope the players and the coaching team have learnt their mistake/undoing from the CECAFA outing.they should surely be able to correct them starting with the match this Sunday.No pressure on you boys but try your best and deliver positive results.Lets put the CECAFA debacle behind us but also quietly learn from it.
According to the Chemelil coach the local referees favour Gor. To me that’s reckless for him to say. Why not intelligently say what you mean. It means next time the refs will be against him or his team when playing Gor just to prove a point to him. All the same we should not be distracted by such comments. Since he has played Gor only once this season and lost then his team should be only maximum 3 points behind Gor if only Gor is his challenge. Let’s hope it was not an issue with language which we know gives most Kenyan footballers/athletes problems in passing their messages
KPL should take action on this coach,those are very careless utterances,in short he is trying to insinuate that Gor engages in match fixing.
Tuende referendum basi!
To me gormahia have learnt a lesson from the tournament what the team lacked was cohession ,we lost so many players during the transfer window.For now let us concentrate with league .that was part of football/
Good analysis from Musa otieno and Legend Sianga. Who is muiruri in Kenyan football? He is a no body and we should just ignore him.
just ignore this muiruri thing , and please i beg you forgive him as a coach , those names are no where to be found in Nyanza ???
Muiruri watch your back or else……
In my opinion there were various factors. But the general instability in finances and the playing unit was the main cause
The titles and trophies That Gor has accumulated all through the years are not in doubt Mr Muiruri! The local and continental footballing heavy weights that Kogalo has had to overcome to be crowned champions reads like who is who in footballing terms in Africa. I urge Kogalo fans not to defend Gor against these stupid allegations as doing so will give undue mileage to outbursts like Muiruri’s. He can continue to wallow in his 5th rate trophies won with Oserian Fc when Kenya football was on its death bed. Were there any worthy opponents to challenge the institutional teams as from 2000-2009? By this I mean Community owned clubs- Gor, Shabana, AFC Leopards, Re Union!! Mr. Muiruri must remember that football exists Because of real and genuine fans. Its only the aforementioned clubs that can draw the numbers. Sheer hard work, dedication, discipline and brilliance, Mr. Muiruri, made and continue to make Kogalo great. As for the Kagame Cup performance, we did well only that a few key decisions didn’t go our way. Our 3rd goal against APR should have stood and so was our second goal against KCCA. Any wise man will tell you that had these decisions favoured us, we would have qualified for the last 8. The likes of Mr. Muiruri and a few others like him are used to short cuts and will remain rooted in their back-water thinking. The wise has a saying- “He who tells you about others tells others about you when you’re absent” . Long live Kogalo. Viva coach Bob and the entire technical bench. Gatusso deserves a special mentioning. Even the hard to please fans have nothing but praise for Gatusso. He did put in a great shift in all the matches. I remember him playing centre half so that Shakava could move upfront against APR. Congratulations boys. We are proud of you.
Mr. Muiruri, you are a profesional but you lack profesionalism in your comments!
I think our performance was average. bcos I believe we played very well except that our striker was out of form. If Danny Sserunkuma wud’ve been at his best we wud’ve won all our matches Somebody shud not say that we rely on Sserunkuma bcos he is our top striker who shud score goals. All teams depend on their top strikers.Even argentina depended heavily on Messi to reach to the finals just like portugal depended on Ronaldo who scored only 1 goal & did not reach nock out stages. I hope Ssere start scoring
TO SLIDE IS NOT TO FALL DOWN
Comrades,
I am happy to be back. I am however returning to this site at a time our beloved club is probably on their next flight to Nairobi after failing to go to the next round of the CECAFA cup.
I must say without fear of contradiction, our boys gave their best at the regional tourney. Poor officiating and mass exit of dependable players have been given as a reason for our poor showing, however many also feel it was a poor tactical approach employed by our coach that has made not cruise to the next stage of the tournament. Gentlemen and ladies, let us accept and move on.
With a near fanatical support, the technical team will have a daunting task to explain what went wrong to the fans. Let us now focus on our local league programme. I wish our great club the very in the remaining KPL matches.
Serious lessons to learn here , 3 years ago APR Rwanda beat us 5 nil at Nyayo Stadium this time round we drew after almost beating them (were it not for the poor officiating), Kudos Gor mahia team , Rom was never built in a day.
muiruri to nyaka wago