Stima coach Ogai wary of Leopards ace Rupia

Western Stima head coach Paul Ogai believes it is difficult to stop in-form striker Elvis Rupia as he prepares his side to face AFC Leopards on Friday.

Rupia already has six goals from just three matches and notched a superb hat-trick last weekend as Leopards mauled Sofapaka 3-0 to go top of the FKF Premier League standings.

The former Coast Stima coach has acknowledged the morale and consistency at the den will make things tough for Western Stima but his boys are ready to fight.

“The mood is okay, we are preparing for AFC (Leopards) and are aware they have not lost any game up to now thanks to their fitness and the on-fire Rupia (Elvis).

So AFC are high flying right now because of their winning mentality and things are rosy to them”, Ogai admitted adding, “we have not yet won a match and that conclusively affects our mental strength but it’s something that we are working on at the moment”.

Stima have a new team which was set up in haste after their entire first team players moved to other clubs except only four.

Their move was catalyzed by lack of sponsors hence no salaries for players whom most of them were signed from second tier league.

The power men who lost their sponsorship in June after Kenya Power terminated their partnership were thrashed 5-2 by Tusker over the weekend to condemn them to 15th after two losses and a draw.

“It is very hard to operate without financial stamina and lack of motivation though team officials are up and down looking for sponsors to partner with us.

Anything to do with salaries for now is a vocabulary to us”, Ogai said at a low tone laughing sarcastically.

A loss for Stima could condemn them to the tail end of the 16-teams log standings at the end of this weekend.