“When you think about how many players were missing, I can’t really say anything to the boys. They fought well. It was not really our day, just like it was all the way this week. We were very unlucky.”

Just in case you are wondering, those are some quotes from Harambee Stars head coach Engin Firat in… November last year when Kenya lost to Gabon in their first 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifier.

Fast forward to September 2024, and it would be easier to put up the same quotes again in the aftermath of a dismal Kenyan performance against Zimbabwe on Friday.

“What we missed today was exactly we have not so many players who are at international level at offensive department”
-Engin Firat on the barren draw with Zimbabwe #AFCONQ2025 pic.twitter.com/5dphf5kpIW https://t.co/XKerpKsWj4
— Eric Njiru (@EricNjiiru) September 6, 2024

How could you call it dismal though? Kenya had another “big problem” with players missing, and no home support by the virtue of being forced to play away in Uganda, it is not as if we lost, and hey, “you’re not world-class.”

It beggars belief that there would be such “context” placed on the outcome of Friday’s match, while all there was to show was a repeat of what we have seen under Firat in the face of adversity - lack of clarity, convenient shifting of blame, and a bucketload of excuses.

Firat cites 'bad luck' as reason behind Harambee Stars' loss to Gabon

Well, maybe some credit for the good things he has done since his official presentation in 2021 - engineered fancy friendlies against Qatar and Russia - that were properly rubbed onto our faces - and, yeah, won the prestigious Four Nations Tournament after winning two games against Malawi and Zimbabwe.

In the big game? Absolutely crushed Seychelles, and got a point from Ivory Coast, where Kenyans were hit with: “I know everybody expected us to lose easily, but you see that even if the boys play in lower leagues, if they unite as a team, and follow our tactical approach, we had a high chance to win.”

On the flipside however, it is in Firat’s reign where players and referees were hung up to dry against Mali, Harambee Stars lost to glamorous Mauritius and South Sudan - with the latter being blamed for “nervous players playing for the first time at home in a long while”- and the latest, a combination of player unavailability and "one-sided officiating" which maybe done right, could have translated into a Kenyan win. Great world to live in.

Firat faults Senegalese referee for failing to sent off two Zimbabwean players

Would it be rational for one to expect Kenya to show a pattern of play and trounce an opponent that stands out as the most beatable in Group J?

Would it seem shocking, that a team that is obviously not world-class, lines up with no striker (not that they lacked some on the bench) and expects to score goals?

Would it seem right for one to be accountable rather than gaslight?

Via @bonfaceosano

"The problem with Kenyans is that you think you are world champions, therefore underestimating everyone else, yet you don't even have a stadium in Kenya," Harambee Stars coach Engin Firat told off a Kenyan journalist after the goalless draw with Zimbabwe. pic.twitter.com/RlITDOcWWj
— Ole Teya (@TeyaKevin) September 6, 2024

With a series of games under his watch to carve a team to his liking, Friday was perhaps the moment when questions should be asked about where the team’s destination under Firat is.

He is right to question what is happening above him, but not so much when questions about his actual job on the field arise.

Maybe a win against Namibia will help restart this unending cycle of hope and bravado, with an untimely defeat unleashing some kind words: “You all think you are world champions.”

Much for progress.

##NAJAVA_MECA_8321160##

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Is there genuine Harambee Stars progress under Engin Firat?

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