Legends decry early Gor, Bandari elimination

Legends decry early Gor, Bandari elimination

Legends of the local game have spoken against the early elimination of Gor Mahia and Bandari FC from the CAF Champions League and Confederation Cup over the weekend.

Revered retired internationals; Joe Kadege and keeper Mahmoud Abbas as well as Harambee Stars former technical director, Patrick Naggi,  decried the current state of affairs after both representatives were dumped out of competition at the first hurdle.

“We have failed to build our teams.We just turn up to play, we have no idea and reason of what we want to do in football. We must ask why are we playing football? We want to win the match but there’s nothing like that.

“The situation is so bad. I’m saddened because we have no idea of what we are doing,” Kadege said after watching Bandari lose 3-1 on aggregate to Congolese side St. Eloi Lupopo in the Confederations Cup preliminary round at Nairobi’s Nyayo Stadium on Sunday.

A day earlier, league champions K’Ogalo were dumped out of the Champions League after losing 1-0 away to Madagascan side, CnaPs in another 3-1 aggregate defeat.

“Our prepartions were very poor compared to Lupopo. Recently they were playing in the AFCON and they won the CHAN just the other day.

“Most top clubs don’t have youth in their squads. We need to go back to the grassroots since its important. In the past, we would start from the youth level going up and we don’t have that nowadays,” the legendary custodian, Abbas who is still ranked as Kenya 1, three decades since he last played, asserted.

“It’s disheartening to see we don’t have players who can be identified from the ages of 16 or 17 these days. If a player does not develop at that age, then its over for him,” he added.

And echoing Bandari coach, Twahir Muhiddin, Naggi who featured in continental action as a former coach at Nzoia FC and Tusker FC blamed the local football season’s timing.

“We have a tactical problem where we follow CAF’s calender rather than the FIFA Calender. It means our teams are in the first phase of the competition coming from the break and they have about 70 percent fitness.

“A team like this that follows the FIFA Calender are in mid seasonhas better fitness than our boys. That is why even Gor Mahia could not perform, Bandari can not perform and even Harambee Stars will have a problem in performing since these are the same boys who will play,” he offered.

“I will propose to the Football Kenya Federation new office that we switch to the FIFA Calender,” Naggi underscored.

The league champions suffered a 2-1 home leg defeat in Nairobi whilst Bandari fell 2-0 away in Lumbumbashi in their opening clash.

K’Ogalo will attempt to get their flagging title defence off the ground when they play Ulinzi Stars in a top SportPesa Premier League clash on Thursday a day after Bandari face local giants AFC Leopards at Nyayo.

Report by John Kyanda/Mkalla wa Mwambodze

 

 

Tags:

Bandari FC Football Kenya Federation GOR MAHIA CAF Champions League CAF Confederations Cup Mahmoud Abbas Joe Kadege Patrick Naggi

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