Games and Sports
The Big Interview - Star Motego Seeks Higher Goal
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- Published on Tuesday, 17 July 2007 00:08
It is the final of the 1989 Council of East and Central Africa Football Association's club cup championship in Nairobi between Kenya Breweries and Coastal Union of Tanzania. Breweries hold a precarious 1-0 lead going deep into the second half thanks to a Paul Onyiera strike.
The tension in the country is clear as the game swings from end to end. A long through ball is played to Motego who pounces on to it in a flash.
In a fraction of a second, instant options present themselves. Should he go for goal or wait for support? The keeper has come off his line to narrow the angle. Should he try a shot to the far post, the near post, or lob the keeper?
To this day, Motego agrees it was one of his best goals in an illustrious football career. The goal was enough to calm nerves in the brewers ranks as they settled down to add a third through Onyiera. The fact that their goalkeeper did not concede a goal was icing on the cake. An afternoon of celebrations erupted as the Kenyan club held aloft the gleaming and magnificent regional cup to their adoring fans.
Another day of options for Motego came on April 23, 1989. This time it was Kenya against Sudan. The teams were tied 0-0 in a crucial African Nations Cup qualifier in Nairobi. The Kenya forward line had failed to get the ball past the superb Sudan goalkeeper Hamid Breima, then considered one of Africa's best.
Hero of Gusii land
The hosts, however, got an excellent chance to beat the keeper after winning a penalty. Motego, the designated penalty taker, stepped forward.
Face to face with one of Africa's best goalkeepers, his mind was in a swirl of thoughts as he prepared to charge for the spot kick. To shoot to the left or right? To place the ball or blast it in? Aim for the roof or fashion a ground shot? He scored to give Kenya a 1-0 victory.
In 1988 Motego was viewed as the hero of Gusii land after playing a key part in getting local side Shabana promoted from the Kenya Football Federation Division Two to the Super League (now Premier League).
Inevitable, as such matters go, a bigger, richer club's interest had been pricked and they went on a relentlessly chase for his signature.
What they were willing to offer him was more than what Shabana could afford. Motego is torn. l His loyalty and sentimental bias towards Shabana are beyond question. But he is human and needs to put food on the table which is what a move to Kenya Breweries FC was guaranteeing. It was also a move he had been looking for.
"Breweries coach Tony Burnfield approached me through Patrick Naggi. I informed Dogo Khan (Shabana chairman) of their interest in me. Shabana was like a second home to me and I really did not want to leave but the offer was a very good one. Khan understood that," Motego says.
"'What if I get injured and I have no job yet my family relies on me?' I asked Khan. He agreed that I could move if I failed to get a job in Kisii."
Tough choices
Concerted efforts were made by the community to get the Shabana darling to remain. The Kisii mayor arranged for Motego to be employed as the manager of Kisii Stadium. But some municipal council officials blocked his hiring protesting that he was too young. Annoyed with the reaction of the local leaders, Khan ended up, in fact, encouraging Motego to move to Nairobi.
Seventeen years later Motego is faced with another choice, perhaps his trickiest yet. Tusker (Breweries) his employer for over 15 years decided to part company with him.
First a perspective. He retired as a player in 2000 and took up the Tusker assistant coaches job before getting elevated to the helmsman position in 2003.
Then pressure of work last year - he was a senior machines operator at the KBL plant in Nairobi - forced him to give up his coaching duties. Poor results by Tusker in that period may also have played a hand in his exit.
He was recently laid off and is now in between jobs.
His choices are to either pursue a career outside football or try and give back to the beautiful game he loves so much.
When you meet Motego there is nothing on his five-foot six-inch, solid 75 kg frame to suggest "Ndovu" is his nickname. But his mule like stubbornness to stay on his feet no matter the attention of defenders and his brute strength during his hey days amply explains how the nickname of elephant came to be.
Pace, powerful shot, poised long throw ins, persistent hassling, perfect penalty kickick were all part of his repertoire.
His clean shaven face is broad, the hairline receding. It is a polite face with kind eyes that hold your stare. Timid, even shy when you first begin to talk to him, chatty and warm when he has your confidence. There is a lot of optimism in Motego's outlook on life.
"I want to get a team, any team to coach and win the Premier League. Then people will see what I am capable of, then I will get to coach Harambee Stars."
He was called up to the Stars as a trialist for the first time in 1986 while an O-Level student at Itierio. But he had cut his teeth much earlier.
Dad, Solomon, was a good soccer player in Gucha District where Motego was born in 1964. Elder brother Robert, was even better, managing to win a first team position in former Premiership side Rivatex. The young Motego could not have had better role models.
He was also a gifted athlete who excelled in sprints and the pole vault.
"I represented my school Boitangare Primary in the national schools championships 100m and 200m races. I could run 100m in 11 seconds when I was in secondary. I think I still hold the Cardinal Otunga pole vault record," Motego rattles on about his impressive boyhood feathers on his cap.
"He is a pole vault and long jump champion," a colleague of mine quips from across the Nation Sports Desk where the interview has so far been going on smoothly.
The unsolicited information Ð welcome though Ð continues: "The guy has broken many records. He is a hero," another of my colleagues chimes in.
But it will be harder achieving in the cooker pressure atmosphere of coaching, obliquely captured in these words by a former top KFF official: "Coaches come and coaches go".
How do you begin to capture the essence of Motego the coach? How do you dig into his persona to find out what makes him tick? What is his coaching philosophy? Which are his guiding principles often spoken of the great modern football managers?
I suppose it is natural to start with where it started.
"Tusker was your first real experience as a coach. You have been involved with them both as a player and a coach. Tell me, why, despite always attracting some of the best players in the country, Tusker has been unable to dominate the league?" I cut to the chase.
The aspiring coach leans forward, not unlike a law professor about to explain some land mark legal ruling he played a major part in to an attentive graduate class.
"Tusker are always losing their best players to teams outside the country. You lose five to six players in one season whom you have to replace, which takes time. Then you have to build up the team once again. Tusker has also been plagued by injury to key players. So they rarely play with their best team for consistent periods."
He has a point there. This season, Tusker were tagged as the team to beat with no fewer than five first choice Harambee Stars players. But the potentially league winning machine was weakened by the loss of its star performers.
One of their brightest midfielders Macdonald Mariga moved to Sweden on a professional contract together with their most productive striker Moses Gitau.
Several useful players have been in and out of the injury list including internationals Mulinge Munandi, Edward Mukenya and Joseph Apidi.
What about the national team? Motego was a key player between 1986 and 1992, passing through no less than four coaches and has keenly followed the fortunes of Harambee Stars.
"Kenya's problem is lack of proper preparations. We are not serious. For instance, while West African countries go to Europe to build up for important international assignments we are satisfied with playing local sides."
"So it is not something to do with the quality of our players?"
He takes a while to react to the question, weighing his answer: "Most of our national team players never went through age group training so they lack a lot of the basic skills - ball control, shooting, positional play.
"Most players are picked up by Premier League sides while they are already adults and have not really mastered the basic skills because they did not benefit from youth training."
Indeed, it would take a coach to notice such things.
So, what kind of players would he be looking for?
"First thing from my players is for all of them to be physically fit. They should not hold on to the ball too much and should have the ability to pass well."
He is warming up to this topic. "Just one or two passes and the ball moves. And they should anticipate the situation on the pitch. The aim is to win and not play to please the crowd. Build your moves from your own half as you probe the weaknesses of your opponents."
"You would require skilled players to do that?"
"Yes, you would."
Talent is natural while skills are acquired the old adage goes. But for Motego, his talent was his skill. By the time he was clearing his Primary education at Botangare in 1982 many provincial schools in Kisii were aware of his football and athletic prowess.
Cardinal Otunga High School, Mosocho won the race to enroll him and for the next two years he studied there. Ironically, his talents got him in trouble through no fault of his own.
"The athletics coach wanted me to train for athletics while the football coach wanted me to train for football. If I missed either training I would be punished by the affected coach.
"The normal punishments you get in school: washing the ablutions block, cutting grass, clearing litter. It became too much. I complained to my dad who decided to withdraw me from that school."
By then Motego was already playing for Shabana who were in the Super League and it came as no surprise when he enrolled at Itierio Boys.
"Most of the players in Shabana were from Itierio Boys Ð in fact nine of the starting 11. This encouraged me to join the school in 1985," Motego explains.
Comfortable life
These band of school boys who helped Shabana to climb up to the top league in 1984 included Motego, Sylvester Mogeri, Mike Okoth, Richard Otambo, Vincent Abuga, Salim Mabruk and the late Henry Nyandoro.
Life was good then for the school boys as the club spared no effort in making them comfortable.
"Shabana would send a bus to pick us up at school and take us to Kisii Stadium, some of the players were nine kilometres away, for training. After that we would be treated to supper in town and brought back to school."
Motego says Shabana paid for his school fees, provided housing for him in Kisii town on top of offering him a match-winning bonus of Sh1,200.
"It was a lot of money back then. And remember I was a student," he says.
The following query was always going to pop up at some point. It is what journalists generally regard as a loaded question.
"What would you say about those who say you were just a student at Itierio by name. That your job was to only play football for Shabana and the school team, and to sleep. That you never used to go for classes?"
"How can they say that? Which teacher would let his students play without going to class? I have my O-Level certificate to prove I finished school. How would I get a certificate if I was not attending classes?" Motego says with indignation.
Going back to school
"Education is important," I return to safer grounds. "Did you know that Arsenals Tony Adams went back to school after retiring from football?"
"He did?"
"Yeah. I read that somewhere."
Motego cleared his O-levels at Itierio in 1986 but not before getting called up to Harambee Stars as a schoolboy trialist, together with Mike "Computer" Ambani of Kakamega High. No doubt after shining in the secondary schools national football championship.
Itierio lost to Kakamega High's "Green Commandoes" in the 1985 final but turned tables on the perennial Western Kenya champs the following year to take the national crown.
He continued to give his services to Shabana but it was not always a love-love relationship.
"Fans always wanted us to win and put so much pressure on us. Whenever we lost, particularly at home, fans - you know the temper of Kisiis - would hurl abuses at us. Sometimes we had to be locked in the changing room for our own security.
"I remember one particular incident when Scarlet beat us 0-2 in Kisii. Can you imagine we had to dig a hole through the fence to escape angry fans who wanted to lynch us for the loss!"
And he still wants to go back to football?
Well, he has attended a training course in Brazil and another in Kenya conducted by Bernhard Zgoll of Germany. He had a two year professional stint with Omani club side Al Orouba from 1991 to 1992.
Motego says he has all the necessary experience to handle a top league outfit and is available immediately for whichever club that will agree to his terms.
The plight of local coaches is well known. Many work without contracts and get hired and fired as regularly as the monsoon season. But somebody has got to do this coaching business. Afterall, it is a source of livelihood for many.
He has two sons Brangunn, 11 and Fabien, 1. We joke about them taking after the father."Do they look like they will play like you?""Brangunn has started playing but I cannot tell for now. We will see what he likes."Perhaps Motego is thinking about how football players in Kenya hardly make ends meet and are so desperate to try their luck abroad.
"Now players have the opportunity of going abroad and making money. In our time this was not happening. We never got the chance to earn decently from the game.
"But we played for the game."
