You didn’t motivate us; Stars coach Migne slams ‘absentee’ fans

The national football team head coach Sebastian Migne has slammed local football fans for failing to turn up in large numbers at the Kenyatta Stadium in Machakos on Friday to rally behind the home team as they tackled Swaziland.

The Stars embarrassing lost 0-1 defeat to the lowly ranked visitors, and Migne, still new at his work station, is clearly not impressed.

Migne who took over as Stars coach on May 3, replacing Belgian Paul Put, who stepped down under a cloud of storm in February, was a disappointed man after Barry Steenkamp guided Felix Bendenhorst’s cross into the net for the all-important goal in the 78^th minute.

“I am very disappointed for the fans because I thought the 60,000 fans who filled the Kasarani Stadium during Gor Mahia and Hull City match a fortnight ago would reflect in this match (against Swaziland) but not even a quarter of them made it to the field,” he lamented.

“This is a bit embarrassing because players need motivation from them. Attending such crucial matches is important to the players…”

“It is my hope that the Government of Kenya through the ministry of sports and also the media will continue to encourage them to turn up in large number so that they can offer their support to their own team,” the former head coach of Congo’s national team said.

After the embarrassing loss, the Stars are now gearing for Monday’s assignment when they take on Equatorial Guinea in another build-up at the same venue.

Ahead of this clash, Migne is magnanimous enough to admit that his team needs to go back to the drawing board and rectify defensive frailties which made them lose to the lowly ranked Swaziland.

“We have limited time before we face Equatorial Guinea on Monday, for now I will speak about the mistakes conceded with my staff and the whole technical team… I noticed we are lacking scoring power, we started playing well in the last 15 minutes where we created a lot of chances but we didn’t use them well.”

In the meantime, Football Kenya Federation has appealed to fans to give the head coach time to build the team.

Speaking after yesterday match, the Federation’s boss Nick Mwendwa defended Migne saying the two friendly matches were organized so as he can get to know the team well.”

“The team played well, I am impressed by the head coach because he has his own unique tactics and we have all seen that. We lost the match because we didn’t utilize more than five scoring chances we created as opposed to our competitors who created one and used it well.”