McCarthy admits to Harambee Stars technical bench inexperience after Lesotho draw

Harambee Stars head coach Benni McCarthy says his technical bench showed a bit of “inexperience” in making a second-half substitution that ended up costing the team during their 1-1 draw against Lesotho on Thursday, 4 June.

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McCarthy, speaking post-match after the friendly fixture at the Lucas Moripe Stadium in South Africa, thought the triple-substitutions in the 69th minute happened at the wrong time, and was one of the contributing factors to a result he termed unsatisfactory.

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Having taken an early lead through Gor Mahia centre back Frank Odhiambo, Harambee Stars were left ruing their missed opportunities and erratic decision-making, when lowly-ranked Lesotho grabbed an equaliser in the 70th minute, eeking out a result that extended Kenya’s winless run against The Crocodiles to 33 years.

On closer introspection, however, many fans were left astounded after the Lesotho goal came just seconds after McCarthy had replaced starting goalkeeper Faruk Shikhalo with debutant Caleb Kramer, while Kenya was defending a dangerous free kick just outside the box.

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As fate would have it, the matchday hosts took advantage of the situation, firing the setpiece past a poorly arranged wall of two players, before the ball ricocheted off the post to Thabo Makhele, who had the easy job of directing his header into an empty net.

Reacting to that moment, McCarthy said: “The fourth official made the substitutions when we wanted him to just play, so that we could do them after the free kick had been taken.

But they [referees] insisted, so they made the changes as they [Lesotho] were on a free kick. So obviously the goalkeeper got in, and then boom, we conceded a goal like that. That was a bit of inexperience on our part.”

Ranked 34 places above Lesotho, Harambee Stars were expected to breeze through the contest, but ended up misfiring on several occasions, with their only goal coming off a handling error from the opposing goalkeeper.

“I think the game was good, but I am not entirely happy and satisfied with the draw,” McCarthy said. “I think the team needed a match to keep going, because obviously we had so many new players that were coming in for the first time, so we wanted to have a little check on them.”

In addition to the aforementioned Kramer, McCarthy also gave Wealdstone forward Micah Obiero his first run out with the national team, while handing out starts to a couple of youngsters, including Stanley Wilson, Lawrence Okoth, and Zech Obiero.

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“I am happy with some of the players we saw,” McCarthy said. “It has been a long season, and we had some players who weren't at the game today. I guess we look forward to the upcoming Sunday, and then hopefully we will have a better showcase than what we did here. From what I saw, we got plenty to improve on.”

The two nations meet again in a rematch on Sunday, 7 June at the same stadium, where McCarthy hopes for a better performance from his team.

“We got a good chance against the same opposition,” McCarthy said. “We know each other now from the first game, so in the second game we will have a completely different team against them, and hopefully we can do a bit better than we did today (Thursday).”