Cheche reveals why he joined Mathare United

Experienced Mathare United centre back David ‘Cheche’ Ochieng has revealed why he opted to Mathare United at the start of the 2020/2021 Football Kenya Federation Premier League season.

Cheche joined the slum boys on a one year deal in November. Before that move, the former AFC Leopards defender had been a free agent after his contract with Saudi Arabian outfit Al Ansar expired.

In an interview on the league sponsors’ social media pages, Cheche revealed how everything went down.

“I settled on Mathare because by the time I decided to come back here, most of the teams had already signed enough quality players and Mathare were not yet done with their signings. At the time, Covid-19 had ravaged all around the world and most of the countries outside had put me on hold. By the time they were done with their decisions, the only team that was still available was Mathare United,” the defender said.

Despite being brought to help in marshaling the defensive line, Cheche and his Mathare team have found it hard to prevent goals from going in. The team has conceded 22 goals, the second highest in the league, keeping only three clean sheets in fourteen games played.

Those performances have seen Mathare fail to get out of the relegation places ever since the season started. The club lies in 17th position on nine points with every passing match week indicating that the club will find it hard to escape the relegation battle. Even though the team boasts of having talented players like James Kinyajui, Cheche knows where the problem lies in terms of why they have struggled in the current campaign.

 “I am optimistic we will avoid it. We have a lot of talented players. Most of them are young and I think mentally they are not ready but hopefully they will at the right time,” the experienced defender said.