Okumbi appointed new Harambee Stars coach
Former Mathare United trainer Stanley Okumbi has been appointed as the new Kenya coach, replacing Scotsman Bobby Williamson.
The change at the helm was announced by the newly elected Football Kenya Federation President Nick Mwendwa.
Okumbi, a CAF License A holder takes over immediately with his first assignment being the Africa Cup of Nations Gabon 2017 two-legged qualifier against Guinea Bissau late next month.
Frank Ouna, assistant coach of Kenyan champions Gor Mahia has been named second assistant coach, and also doubling up as the team manager. Former Harambee Stars skipper Musa Otieno is retained as the first assistant coach.
For the first time in the history of the Kenya national team, there will be a logistics specialist and a performance analyst. Michael Igendia, a Kenyan-Finnish, trained at the Jyaskyla University in Finland has been appointed as performance specialist and Michael Kamure, as logistics specialist. Also lined up later are appointments of a video analyst and a nutritionist.
Okumbi tells CAFOnline,com that he harbours ambitions to see the national team return to its glory days and remained optimistic they will do well.
“I am definitely excited because when you are called upon to serve your country, it is a big honour. We are going to restructure our style of play. We trust in ourselves as the technical bench and our players, they have the ability and we know they can deliver. We have professional players who play in top leagues across the world. I believe with my technical bench, we will be able to come up with a winning team and a winning mentality,” Okumbi said.
“Our plan is to work with friendly federations to develop a technical master-plan that builds local capacity to the grass-root level and give a unique philosophy to the Kenyan game. Stanley (Okumbi) is one of the highly rated local coaches and it is our intention to deepen our reservoir of technical talent”, Mwendwa said as he unveiled the new look technical bench.
“Our immediate concern is the Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers which will be played in March and we want to start preparing as early as possible. This bench will have a free hand to do their work and we will support them.
“Our long term plan is to have a shot at the 2022 and the 2026 FIFA World Cups and our focus is on making the national team youthful so that we gain enough experience before the time,” Mwendwa added.