What Harambee Stars can learn from Comoros in rebuild

Harambee Stars are currently in their rebuilding phase having done away with their old guard and can certainly pick up valuable lessons from Comoros who qualified for their first-ever Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) a few days ago.

The 23-man line up that Harambee Stars named against Egypt had an average age of 25.9 years but their oldest players James Saruni (35) and Kevin Kimani (31) who had a significant impact on the average age did not take to the field.

If the two were to be dropped the average age would fall to 24.0 making the squad an exciting young group of players who have 10 years of a football career ahead of them and the perfect age to start a rebuild.

Comoros road to the AFCON was a long and treacherous one and started back in 2014 when they appointed Amir Abdou as their head coach from French 6th tier side Golfech Saint Paul.

Abdou revealed that the secret to their success was sticking to the team that kick-started their rebuild seven years ago.

“When I received the call I was very excited and happy to work with my home country national team. I started my career with youth sides, and this helped me a lot to know how young players think and how to deal with them."

“We started with a very young team and kept the form till the moment. Most of these players are still with me till today, and by adding more young ones we became that solid side you see,” said Abdou in an interview with CAF.

Harambee Stars head coach Jacob Ghost Mulee made a bold decision of dropping former skipper Victor Wanyama, Eric Johanna, Johanna Omolo, Ayub Timbe and Ismael Gonzalez from the squad and had some surprises with some young players.

The youngest players in the Harambee Stars squad include Daniel Sakari (21), Johnstone Omurwa, Baraka Badi and Abdalla Hassan who are 22.

The longest-serving African coach revealed that when he took over the reins in Comoros back in 2014 he never dreamt of qualifying for AFCON but focused on laying the foundations first.

“No! It was so difficult to think of (qualifying for AFCON). I had to put the house foundations first. We had very few players abroad, and I had to start my own project with my coaching philosophy,” he added.

However, unlike Comoros, Kenya have a decent league that has shown tremendous improvement in this season with 14 of the 23 players on the line up to face Egypt from the Football Kenya Federation Premier League (FKFPL).

Abdou noted that the Comoros league still has a long way before producing players fit enough to play for the national team and could do without the French-based Comoros players. 

“Domestic league in Comoros is still in a phase that does not produce efficient players to take part in the national team and compete with those plying their trade in Europe. We had a couple of players from the domestic league but recently they joined me in Nouadhibou. Hopefully, in the near future, we can have more local-based players.”

“It’s up to them, I cannot force them to join us. It’s a personal decision, but if they chose to play for Comoros, they will be more than welcome. This is their fathers’ and ancestors’ country. I talked to some of them and still wait for their final decision,” noted Abdou.

Comoros hope to follow in the footsteps of Madagascar who went all the way to the quarter-finals stage in their maiden AFCON campaign.